Had she been pretty he might have, even now, forgiven her, but today she looked especially plain with her pale face and shabby black dress and her obstinate mouth and chin.

He was uneasy, too, about the imminent arrival of his sister Anne, who always frightened him and made him think poorly of the world in general.

No hope of getting any money out of her, nor would Charles have left him a penny.

It was a rotten, unsympathetic world, and Uncle Mathew cursed God as he strutted sulkily along.

Maggie also had fallen into silence.
They came at last out of the wood and stood at the edge of it, with the pine trees behind them, looking down over Polchester.