[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.

The more enchanted the idyll, greater must be the pain of its ending.

You will like her," he persisted. "Egad, she's after your own heart, maman! She shot me in the arm." "Voyons, do you think that is what I like?

My house seems remarkably full of people," he observed. "Is it possible we were expected.

But it is only in epic tragedies that gloom is unrelieved. In real life tragedy and comedy are so intermingled that when one is most wretched ridiculous things happen to make one laugh in spite of oneself.

Is it not insupportable to be held down to a canter when you long to gallop for miles?

Will you marry me, vile and abominable girl that you are? Yes, but, mind, it only to save my neck from being wrung!