Explore "Shirley" by Charlotte Brontë on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Everybody said it was high time for Mr. Moore to return home: all Briarfield wondered at his strange absence, and Whinbury and Nunnely brought each its separate contribution of amazement.
Was it known why he stayed away? Yes: it was known twenty--forty times over; there being, at least, forty plausible reasons adduced to account for the unaccountable circumstance. Business it was not--that the gossips agreed: he had achieved the business on which he departed long ago: his four ringleaders he had soon scented out and run down: he had attended their trial, heard their conviction and sentence, and seen them safely shipped prior to transportation.