... had succeeded to his brother's position and influence), and another sixth-form boy, talking together before the fire. The master and young Brooke, now a great strapping fellow six feet high, eighteen years old, and powerful as a coal-heaver, nodded kindly to Tom, to his intense glory, and then went on talking. The other did not notice them. The hostess, after a few kind words, which led the boys at once and insensibly to feel at their ease and to begin talking to one another, left them with her own children ... — Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes
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