Oh yes!' and suddenly the wintry frost-bound look of care had left Mr. Thornton's face, as if some soft summer gale had blown all anxiety away from his mind; and, though his mouth was as much compressed as before, his eyes smiled out benignly on his questioner.

In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses above a certain rent are women. If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his hip, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad. In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not at Cranford.

But I was right. I think that must be an hereditary quality, for my father says he is scarcely ever wrong.

The French girls would tell you, to believe that you were pretty would make you so.

I would not trust a mouse to a woman if a man's judgment could be had.

It had been a royal time of luxury to him, with all its stings and contumelies, compared to the poverty that crept round and clipped the anticipation of the future down to sordid fact, and life without an atmosphere of either hope or fear.

One may be clogged with honey and unable to rise and fly.