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!

I can't imagine what possessed you to propose to me." "Well that will give you something to puzzle over any time you can't sleep.

Depend upon it, you are just the sort of girl a man would be glad to have for his sister! You don't even know how to swoon, and I daresay if you tried you would make wretched work of it, for all you have is common sense, and of what use is that, pray?

Oh, yes, she's unusual!' he said bitterly. 'She blurts our whatever may come into her head;she tumbles from one outrageous escapade into another;she's happier gromming horses and hobnobbing with stable-hands than going to parties; she's impertinent; you daren't catch her eye for fear she should start to giggle; she hasn't any accomplishments; I never saw anyone with less diginity; she's abominable, and damnably hot at hand, frank to a fault, and-a darling!

[...]my memory is reasonably good—unlike yours, dear sir!” “Mine is erratic,” he said imperturbably. “I remember only what interests 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.

No one could have called Mr. Standen quick-witted, but the possession of three sisters had considerably sharpened his instinct of self-preservation.