But where in England I had lived, or when I had left that country, or whether I had relations there, and why I was doomed to be a foreign girl--all these questions were but as curling wisps of cloud on memory's sky.
Of such things (much as I longed to know a good deal more about them) I never had dared to ask my father; nor even could I, in a roundabout way, such as clever children have, get second-hand information.

In the first place, I was not a clever child; for the next point, I never had underhand skill; and finally, there was no one near me who knew any thing about me.

Like all other girls--and perhaps the very same tendency is to be found in boys--I had strong though hazy ideas of caste.

The noble sense of equality, fraternity, and so on, seems to come later in life than childhood, which is an age of ambition.

I did not know who in the world I was, but felt quite sure of being somebody.
One day, when the great tree had been sawn into lengths, and with the aid of many teams brought home, and the pits and the hoisting tackle were being prepared and strengthened to deal with it, Mr.Gundry, being full of the subject, declared that he would have his dinner in the mill yard.