Old Lady Kew's tongue was a dreadful thong which made numbers of people wince.
She was not altogether cruel, but she knew the dexterity with which she wielded her lash, and liked to exercise it.

Poor Lady Julia was always at hand, when her mother was minded to try her powers.
Lady Kew had just made herself comfortable at Brighton, when her little grandson's illness brought Lady Anne Newcome and her family down to the sea.

Lady Kew was almost scared back to London again, or blown over the water to Dieppe.

She had never had the measles.

"Why did not Anne carry the child to some other place?
Julia, you will on no account go and see that little pestiferous swarm of Newcomes, unless you want to send me out of the world--which I dare say you do, for I am a dreadful plague to you, I know, and my death would be a release to you." "You see Doctor H., who visits the child every day," cries poor Pincushion; "you are not afraid when he comes." "Doctor H.?
Doctor H.comes to cure me, or to tell me the news, or to flatter me, or to feel my pulse and to pretend to prescribe, or to take his guinea; of course Dr.H.must go to see all sorts of people in all sorts of diseases.