Life could do nothing for her, beyond giving time for a better preparation for death.

What strange creatures brothers are!

It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been known of young people passing many, many months successively without being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue either to body or mind.

A mother would have been always present. A mother would have been a constant friend; her influence would have been beyond all other.

She mediated, by turns, on broken promises and broken arches, phaetons and false hangings, Tilneys and trap-doors.

I leave it to be settled, by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.

My good qualities are under your protection, and you are to exaggerate them as much as possible; and, in return, it belongs to me to find occasion for teasing and quarreling with you as often as may be.