Well, you have the right to make a sacrifice of yourself, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let you sacrifice me!
Do you know, I think that of all your idiosyncrasies that choke you give, when you are determined not to laugh, is the one that most enchants me.
She decided that her wisest course would be to put him out of her mind. After reaching this conclusion she lay thinking about him until at last she fell asleep.
She bowed her head, clasping her hands tightly before her upon the arm of his chair, for her heart yearned towards him, yet could not reach him, and it made her throat ache with unhappiness to meet that look of his that rested on her face without seeing it.
Judging from the letters I’ve received from obviously feeble-minded persons who wish I would write another These Old Shades, it ought to sell like hot cakes.
Eccentricity may be diverting, Mama, but it is out of place in a wife: certainly in my wife!
I liked that young man, did not you? There was something particularly pleasing about his manners, which I thought very easy and frank. He has an air of honest manliness, too, which, in these days of fribbles and counter-coxcombs, I own I find refreshing!
Those fine eyes of hers had a disconcertingly direct gaze, and very often twinkled in a manner disturbing to male egotism. She had common-sense too, and what man wanted the plainly matter-of-fact, when he could enjoy instead Sophia’s delicious folly?
The society of my relatives can only be enjoyed with frequent intervals.
Will you marry me, vile and abominable girl that you are? Yes, but, mind, it only to save my neck from being wrung!
You will allow that one’s curiosity must be aroused when one learns that a lady is prepared to elope to escape from advances one had not the least intention of making!
The charm of your society, My Sparrow, lies in not knowing what will you say next – though one rapidly learns to fear the worst!
Did you imagine that you would make me believe ill of Sophy with your foolish and spiteful letter!′ he demanded. ‘You have tried to set me against her from the outset, but you over-reached yourself today, my girl! How dared you write in such terms to me! How could you have been so crassly stupid as to suppose that Sophy could ever need your countenance to set her right in the eyes of the world, or that I would believe one word of slander against her?
I find it a marvellous circumstance, cousin, that no one has yet strangled you!
I don’t think I am green. It’s true I only know what I’ve read in books, but I’ve read a great many books.
Perhaps you have friends already who laugh when you do,’ she said diffidently. ‘I haven’t, and it’s important, I think – more important than sympathy in affliction, which you might easily find in someone you positively disliked.’ ‘But to share a sense of the ridiculous prohibits dislike – yes, that’s true. And rare!
A voice that to Dominica’s fancy seemed to hold all the sunshine and the salt wind of fine days at sea smote her ears.
I daresay Freddy might not be a great hand at slaying dragons, but you may depend upon it none of those knight-errants would be able to rescue one from a social fix, and you must own, Meg, that one has not the smallest need of a man who can kill dragons!
Yes, but we do not know that he snores, my love,’ Lady Ombersley pointed out. ‘Indeed, we may be almost certain that he does not, for his manners are so very gentleman-like!’ ‘A man who would contract the mumps,’ declared Cecilia, ’would do anything!
Your strength lies in being precisely the kind of man who can procure one a chair when it has come on to rain.