eyes.

The figure was also a little out of drawing, so to speak; it was
tall and loosely-jointed. The general impression was one of agility
and power. But if you looked closer you saw that the shoulders
were narrow, the arms inordinately long, and the extremities too
small for the general height. Robert Elsmere's hand was the hand
of a woman, and few people ever exchanged a first greeting with its
very tall owner without a little shock of surprise.

Mr. Thornburgh and his guest had visited a few houses in the course
of their walk, and the vicar plunged for a minute or two into some
conversation about local matters with his wife. But Mrs. Thornburgh,
it was soon evident; was giving him but a scatterbrained attention.
Her secret was working in her ample breast. Very soon she could
contain it no longer, and breaking in upon her husband's parish
news, she tumbled it all out pell-mell with a mixture of discomfiture
and defiance infinitely diverting. She could not keep a secret,
but she also could not bear to give William an advantage.

William certainly took his advantage. He did what his wife in her
irritation had precisely foreseen that he would do. He first stared,
then fell into a guffaw of laughter, and as soon as he had recovered
breath, into a series of unfeeling comments which drove Mrs.
Thornburgh to desperation.

'If you will set your mind, my dear, on things we plain folks can
do perfectly well without'--et cetera, et cetera--the husband's
point of view can be imagined. Mrs. Thornburgh could have shaken
her good man, especially as there was nothing new to her in his