Page:The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (emended first edition), Volume 1.djvu/77

Rh quiet way, if my mother could only have let him alone, but in her mistaken kindness, she would keep persecuting him with her attentions—pressing upon him all manner of viands, under the notion that he was too bashful to help himself, and obliging him to shout across the room his monosyllabic replies to the numerous questions and observations by which she vainly attempted to draw him into conversation.

Rose informed me that he never would have favoured us with his company, but for the importunities of his sister Jane, who was most anxious to show Mr. Lawrence that she had at least one brother more gentlemanly and refined than Robert. That worthy individual she had been equally solicitous to keep away; but he affirmed that he saw no reason why he should not enjoy a crack with Markham and the old lady, (my mother was not old really,) and bonny Miss Rose and the parson, as well as the best;—and he was in the right of it too. So he talked common-place with my mother and