You should have seen what a blanc-bec he looked when he first spoke of it: how he hesitated and blushed, and positively trembled from fear of a repulse.
Sweeny's doom was in Madame Beck's eye—an immutable purpose that eye spoke: Madame's visitations for shortcomings might be slow, but they were sure.
The remembrance of his countenance, which I am sure wore a light not unbenignant to the friendless—the sound in my ear of his voice, which spoke a nature chivalric to the needy and feeble, as well as the youthful and fair—were a sort of cordial to me long after.
He said I was like my uncle Charles: I suppose he spoke truth, because Mrs.
Leigh spoke French (very bad French, by the way, and with an incorrigibly bad accent, again forcibly reminding me of our school-days): and I found the woman was a foreigner.
Nobody spoke.
He still seemed not to see or to feel her; but by-and-by, he lifted her to his knee; she nestled against him, and though neither looked at nor spoke to the other for an hour following, I suppose both were satisfied.
Stapleton herself, spoke good English, but with a curious lisping accent.
" She broke into passionate sobbing as she spoke.
" My friend spoke in his frankest and most unconcerned manner.
" He spoke with a sudden passion of earnestness.
He spoke lightly, but it was evident that he was very much in earnest.
" He spoke with a smile, but I seemed to read in his eyes that he took the matter more seriously.
In a very few hours the brown earth had become ruddy, the brick had changed to granite, and red cows grazed in well-hedged fields where the lush grasses and more luxuriant vegetation spoke of a richer, if a damper, climate.
" His dark brows knitted and his face flushed to a dusky red as he spoke.
" He had risen and paced the room as he spoke.
Suddenly right behind Peter's back Striped Chipmunk spoke.
Then Granny Fox spoke again: "You lie down behind that bunch of grass over there, Reddy, and I will lie down behind the old apple-tree.
" But though he spoke so bravely it was noticed that he went no nearer the stranger.
He never went anywhere except to church; he never took part in Carlisle's simple social life; even with most men he was distant and reserved; as for women, he never spoke to or looked at them; if one spoke to him, even if she were a matronly old mother in Israel, he was at once in an agony of painful blushes.
