Few of them ever got beyond a handshake and a smile, and none of them ever reached the borders of intimacy.

Popularity in a country village could never, she knew, be gained by a pretty woman without great discretion.

She explained her foresight to Jane by telling her that there was no man of her world in Warehold but the doctor, and that she wouldn't think of setting her cap for him as she would be gray-haired before he would have the courage to propose.

Then she kissed Jane in apology, and breaking out into a rippling laugh that Martha heard upstairs, danced out of the room.
Little Ellen, too, had her innings; not only was she prettily dressed, presenting the most joyous of pictures, as with golden curls flying about her shoulders she flitted in and out of the rooms like a sprite, but she was withal so polite in her greetings, dropping to everyone a little French courtesy when she spoke, and all in her quaint, broken dialect, that everybody fell in love with her at sight.

None of the other mothers had such a child, and few of them knew that such children existed.
Jane watched the workings of Lucy's mind with many misgivings.