The dull smile, with which the squatter answered to this assurance, proved how little he valued the pledge that the youth, in the first revulsion of his feelings, was so free to make.
The air of settled gloom, which had taken possession of the squatter's countenance, lighted for an instant with a look of dull drollery, as he answered--
The squatter seemed reluctant to abandon his views of the abashed girl, so easily; and before he answered to the suggestion of his wife, he turned his usual dull look along the line of the curious countenances of his boys, as if to see whether there was not one among them fit to fill the place of the deceased.