I should not have known him.' I replied that I should have known her, anywhere.

Which was true enough.
'Miss Murdstone has had the goodness,' said Mr.Spenlow to me, 'to accept the office--if I may so describe it--of my daughter Dora's confidential friend.

My daughter Dora having, unhappily, no mother, Miss Murdstone is obliging enough to become her companion and protector.' A passing thought occurred to me that Miss Murdstone, like the pocket instrument called a life-preserver, was not so much designed for purposes of protection as of assault.

But as I had none but passing thoughts for any subject save Dora, I glanced at her, directly afterwards, and was thinking that I saw, in her prettily pettish manner, that she was not very much inclined to be particularly confidential to her companion and protector, when a bell rang, which Mr.Spenlow said was the first dinner-bell, and so carried me off to dress.
The idea of dressing one's self, or doing anything in the way of action, in that state of love, was a little too ridiculous.

I could only sit down before my fire, biting the key of my carpet-bag, and think of the captivating, girlish, bright-eyed lovely Dora.