But this latter Utopian object (in short sleeves) always appeared to be the great inoffensive aim of her existence.
'It sounds horrid, don't it ?' said Miss Podsnap, with a penitential face.
Mrs Lammle, not very well knowing what to answer, resolved herself into a look of smiling encouragement.
'But it is, and it always has been,' pursued Miss Podsnap, 'such a trial to me! I so dread being awful.

And it is so awful! No one knows what I suffered at Madame Sauteuse's, where I learnt to dance and make presentation-curtseys, and other dreadful things--or at least where they tried to teach me.

Ma can do it.' 'At any rate, my love,' said Mrs Lammle, soothingly, 'that's over.' 'Yes, it's over,' returned Miss Podsnap, 'but there's nothing gained by that.

It's worse here, than at Madame Sauteuse's.

Ma was there, and Ma's here; but Pa wasn't there, and company wasn't there, and there were not real partners there.