His welcome to Magdalen,
beginning with the usual flow of words, stopped suddenly in the middle
of the first sentence. Captain Wragge's eye was a sharp one, and it
instantly showed him something in the look and manner of his old pupil
which denoted a serious change.
There was a settled composure on her face which, except when she spoke,
made it look as still and cold as marble. Her voice was softer and more
equable, her eyes were steadier, her step was slower than of old.
When she smiled, the smile came and went suddenly, and showed a little
nervous contraction on one side of her mouth never visible there before.
She was perfectly patient with Mrs. Wragge; she treated the captain with
a courtesy and consideration entirely new in his experience of her--but
she was interested in nothing. The curious little shops in the back
street; the high impending sea; the old town-hall on the beach; the
pilots, the fishermen, the passing ships--she noticed all these objects
as indifferently as if Aldborough had been familiar to her from her
infancy. Even when the captain drew up at the garden-gate of North
Shingles, and introduced her triumphantly to the new house, she hardly
looked at it.
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