Then she took the pins out of her hat and threw it on a chair, thus symbolising the renunciation of her intention of returning forthwith to Scotland.
"Yes, Maria," said Lady Fenimore, with fear in her dark eyes, "we don't doubt your word--but, as Anthony has said, if she wasn't with you, where was she ?" "How do I know ?" Maria Beccles pointed a lean finger--she was a dark and shrivelled, gipsy-like creature.

"You might as well ask the canal in which she drowned herself." "But, my God, Anthony!" I cried, when he had got thus far, "What did you think?
What did you say ?" I realised that the old lady had her social disqualifications.
Plain-dealing is undoubtedly a virtue.

But there are several virtues which the better class of angel keeps chained up in a dog-kennel.

Of course she was acute.

A mind trained in the acrobatics of Calvinistic Theology is, within a narrow compass, surprisingly agile.