noon
Do n't take it amiss if I quit you . '' `` Go : duty before all things , '' was the conscientious reply . The stranger was a man of more than winsome aspect . There he stood apart and in repose , and yet , by his mere look , lured the man in gray from his story , much as , by its graciousness of bearing , some full-leaved elm , alone in a meadow , lures the noon sickleman to throw down his sheaves , and come and apply for the alms of its shade . But , considering that goodness is no such rare thing among men -- the world familiarly know the noun ; a common one in every language -- it was curious that what so signalized the stranger , and made him look like a kind of foreigner , among the crowd -LRB- as to some it make him appear more or less unreal in this portraiture -RRB- , was but the expression of so prevalent a quality . Such goodness seemed his , allied with such fortune , that , so far as his own personal experience could have gone , scarcely could he have known ill , physical or moral ; and as for knowing or suspecting the latter in any serious degree -LRB- supposing such degree of it to be -RRB- , by observation or philosophy ; for that , probably , his nature , by its opposition , imperfectly qualified , or from it wholly exempted . For the rest , he might have been five and fifty , perhaps sixty , but tall , rosy , between plump and portly , with a primy , palmy air , and for the time and place , not to hint of his years , dressed with a strangely festive finish and elegance .