My dear girl, don't talk nonsense to me! You're lazy, that's all that's wrong with you. Why don't you take up social work?

People who start a sentence with personally (and they're always women) ought to be thrown to the lions. It's a repulsive habit.

You don't feel you could marry me instead? Got no brains, of course, and I ain't a handsome fellow, like Jack, but I love you. Don't think I could ever love anyone else.

[He was aware] of the value of the word of praise dropped at exactly the right moment; and he would have thought himself extremely stupid to withhold what cost him so little and was productive of such desirable results.

Léonie, you will do well to consider. You are not the first woman in my life." She smiled through her tears. "Monseigneur, I would so much rather be the last woman than the first,” she said.

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.

Miss Trent regarded her thoughtfully. "Well, it's an odd circumstance, but I've frequently observed that whenever you boast of your beauty you seem to lose some of it. I expect it must be the change in your expression." Startled, Tiffany flew to gaze anxiously into the ornate looking-glass which hung above the fireplace. "Do I?" she asked naively. "Really do I, Ancilla?" "Yes, decidedly," replied Miss Trent, perjuring her soul without the least hesitation.