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

He was, she reflected, almost rudely like a tortoise; and she was glad her friend kept none as pets or they might have suspected mockery.

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

Like all really strong-minded women, on whom everybody flops, she adored being bossed about. It was so restful.

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

The education bestowed on Flora Poste by her parents had been expensive, athletic and prolonged; and when they died within a few weeks of one another during the annual epidemic of the influenza or Spanish Plague which occurred in her twentieth year, she was discovered to possess every art and grace save that of earning her own living.

There have always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm