`` And then the look of him ! Uncle Roger says he is long , lank , lean , narrow , and contracted . '' `` Things always sound worse than they are when Uncle Roger says them , '' said the Story Girl . `` Uncle Edward says Jasper Dale is a very clever man and it 's a great pity he was n't able to finish his college course . He went to college two years , you know . Then his father died , and he stayed home with his mother because she was very delicate . I call him a hero . I wonder if it is true that he writes poetry . Mrs. Griggs says it is . She says she has seen him writing it in a brown book . She said she could n't get near enough to read it , but she knew it was poetry by the shape of it . '' `` Very likely . If that blue silk dress story is true , I 'd believe ANYTHING of him , '' said Felicity . We were near Golden Milestone now . The house was a big , weather-gray structure , overgrown with vines and climbing roses . Something about the three square windows in the second story gave it an appearance of winking at us in a friendly fashion through its vines -- at least , so the Story Girl said ; and , indeed , we could see it for ourselves after she had once pointed it out to us . We did not get into the house , however . We met the Awkward man in his yard , and he gave us a quarter apiece for our library . He did not seem awkward or shy ; but then we were only children , and his foot was on his native heath . He was a tall , slender man , who did not look his forty years , so unwrinkled was his high , white forehead , so clear and lustrous his large , dark-blue eyes , so free from silver threads his rather long black hair .
He had large hands and feet , and walked XXXXX a slight stoop .
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