rdly older than us. It doesn't seem possible anyone like us
can be dead...."

He pushed the thought away from him and soon was listening to
Killigrew's tales of Paris, some of which were so obviously meant to
startle him that he kept to himself the fact that they succeeded.
Awkwardness died between them, and when he turned in up the new
drive--still only half-made, but the whole scheme of it clear--Ishmael
could glow at the other's admiration of his home.

If he could show off Cloom without a qualm, however, it was not the same
when it came to displaying his family, and never had he been so thankful
for Vassie's beauty as when he saw Killigrew's notice of it. And how
that beauty glowed for Killigrew! Even a brother's eyes could not but
admire. Phoebe sat unnoticed, her charm swamped in that effulgence.
Annie's querulous remarks faded through sheer pride into silence. The
Parson, a welcome addition, arrived for supper; greasy Tonkin,
inevitable though not so greatly a source of pleasure, drove over from
Penzance and sat absorbing Vassie, so to speak, at every pore.

Supper was going off well, thought Ishmael, as he watched Killigrew eat
and laugh, and listened to his talk that could not have been more
animated--so reflected Ishmael in his relief--if Vassie had been a
duchess. Under the brightness the tension, so common to that room that
it had become part of it, evaporated, and yet what, after all, was it
that achieved this miracle? Nothing in the world but ordinary social
intercourse between young and gay people who met as equals, intercourse
such as poor Ishmael had never known under his own roof before.... And
they all made a fuss of him: John-James actually said something
approving, if difficult to follow, about his farming; Vassie beamed on
him not only for his friend's sake; the Parson drew him out--he felt
himself a host, and responded to the sensation.

Killigrew was just drawing upon the tablecloth, unreproved of Annie, a
sketch of a fashionable Parisian lady for Vassie's instruction when the
door opened to admit of Tom, a very rare visitor at Cloom nowadays. He
was in sleek black broadcloth and looked almost as ecclesiastical as
Tonkin, and much more so than Boase. Tom wore a handsome white cravat
beneath his narrow, clean-shaved chin, which was decorated on either
side with whiskers whose fiery hue made Killigrew's seem but tawny. Tom
wore also a curious smile on his thin lips, but Ishmael was forced to
ad