She was past sixty, with a mournful puckered and puffy face, tinted all
over with a thin gamboge and burnt sienna glazing; and very blue under
the eyes, which showed a great deal of their watery whites. This old
woman had in her face and air, along with an expression of suspicion and
anxiety, a certain character of decency and respectability, which made
her altogether a puzzling and unpleasant apparition.

Being taciturn and undemonstrative, she stood at the door, looking with
as pleased a countenance as so sad a portrait could wear upon the young
gentleman.

He got up at his leisure and greeted 'old Tamar,' with his sleepy, amused
sort of smile, and a few trite words of kindness. So Tamar withdrew to
prepare tea; and he said, all at once, with a sudden accession of energy,
and an unpleasant momentary glare in his eyes--

'You know, Rachel, this sort of thing is all nonsense. You cannot go on
living like this; you must marry--you shall marry. Mark Wylder is down
here, and he has got an estate and a house, and it is time he should
marry you.'

'Mark Wylder is here to marry my cousin, Dorcas; and if he had no such
intention, and were as free as you are, and again to urge his foolish
suit upon his knees, Stanley, I would die rather than accept him.'

'It was not always so foolish a suit, Radie,' answered her brother, his
eyes once more upon the carpet. 'Why should not _he_ do as well as
another? You liked him well enough once.'