earlier

“The history is a sad one, sir,” said Caderousse, shaking his head; “perhaps you know all the earlier part of it?”

If he only had spoken earlier!

Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies’ eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde’s Hollow it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs.

I shall entreat his pardon for not having done it earlier.