Mrs. Dalloway

a young hawk; but with her he was always very gentle. She had never
seen him wild or drunk, only suffering sometimes through this terrible
war, but even so, when she came in, he would put it all away. Anything,
anything in the whole world, any little bother with her work, anything
that struck her to say she would tell him, and he understood at once.
Her own family even were not the same. Being older than she was and
being so clever--how serious he was, wanting her to read Shakespeare
before she could even read a child’s story in English!--being so much
more experienced, he could help her. And she too could help him.

But this hat now. And then (it was getting late) Sir William Bradshaw.

She held her hands to her head, waiting for him to say did he like
the hat or not, and as she sat there, waiting, looking down, he could
feel her mind, like a bird, falling from branch to branch, and always
alighting, quite rightly; he could follow her mind, as she sat there
in one of those loose lax poses that came to her naturally and, if he
should say anything, at once she smiled, like a bird alighting with
all its claws firm upon the bough.

But he remembered Bradshaw said, “The people we are most fond of are