Adrienne Toner

" ...]manner, composed beyond anything he had ever encountered. With an irony, kindly enough, yet big, he knew, with unfavourable inferences, he even recognized, reconstructing the moment in the light of those that followed, that in rising to meet him as he was named to her, it had been, rather than in shyness or girlishness, in the wish to welcome him and draw him the more happily into a group she had already made her own. They were all sitting round the plentiful table, set with home-made loaves and cakes, jams and butter, and a Leeds bowl of primroses; Miss Toner just across from him, Barney on one side of her-his was an air of tranquil ecstasy-and little Barbara on the other, and they all seemed to emanate a new radiance; almost, thought Oldmeadow, with an irritability that was still genial, like ...]."