Her friend Louise was absent: she had so few friends--owing to that unsolved reason: she wanted one, of any kind, if only gentle: and this lady seemed to need her: and she flattered; Nesta was in the mood for swallowing and digesting and making sweet blood of flattery.
At one time, she liked Mrs.Marsett best absent: in musing on her, wishing her well, having said the adieu.

For it was wearisome to hear praises of 'innocence'; and women can do so little to cure that 'wickedness of men,' among the lady's conversational themes; and 'love' too: it may be a 'plague,' and it may be 'heaven': it is better left unspoken of.

But there were times when Mrs.Marsett's looks and tones touched compassion to press her hand: an act that had a pledgeing signification in the girl's bosom: and when, by the simple avoidance of ejaculatory fervours, Mrs.Marsett's quieted good looks had a shadow of a tender charm, more pathetic than her outcries were.
These had not always the sanction of polite usage: and her English was guilty of sudden lapses to the Thameswater English of commerce and drainage instead of the upper wells.

But there are many uneducated ladies in the land.

Many, too, whose tastes in romantic literature betray now and then by peeps a similarity to Nesta's maid Mary's.