Neither did he know,
so full was he of his tender ulterior object in buying that horse,
how many cups of tea he was gulping down one after another, nor
how the morning was slipping, nor how he was keeping the family
from dispersing about their duties.
Then he told throughout the humorous story of the horse's
purchase,looking particularly grim at some fixed object in the
room, a way he always looked when he narrated anything that amused
him. While he was still thinking of the scene he had described,
Grace rose and said, "I have to go and help my mother now, Mr.
Winterborne."
"H'm!" he ejaculated, turning his eyes suddenly upon her.
She repeated her words with a slight blush of awkwardness;
whereupon Giles, becoming suddenly conscious, too conscious,
jumped up, saying, "To be sure, to be sure!" wished them quickly
good-morning, and bolted out of the house.
Nevertheless he had, upon the whole, strengthened his position,
with her at least. Time, too, was on his side, for (as her father
saw with some regret) already the homeliness of Hintock life was
fast becoming effaced from her observation as a singularity; just
as the first strangeness of a face from which we have for years
been separated insensibly passes off with renewed intercourse, and
tones itself down into simple identity with the lineaments of the
past.
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