Nature is all very well in her place, but she must not be allowed to make things untidy.

Well,' said Mrs Smiling, 'it sounds an appalling place, but in a different way from all the others. I mean, it does sound interesting and appalling, while the others just sound appalling.

And when April like an over-lustful lover leaped upon the lush flanks of the Downs there would be yet another child in the wretched hut down on Nettle Flitch Field, where Meriam housed the fruits of her shame.

Happiness can never hope to command so much interest as distress.

Surely she had endured enough for one evening without having to listen to intelligent conversation?

There are some things (like first love and one’s first reviews) at which a woman in her middle years does not care to look too closely.

Here was an occasion, she thought, for indulging in that deliberate rudeness which only persons with habitually good manners have the right to commit.