Her ideas travelled by slow trains of association that started from nowhere but always arrived at Bastian Cautley as a terminus.

If Juliana had a headache Mrs.Moon supposed that she wanted that young man to be dancing attendance on her again; if Juliana sighed she declared that Dr.Cautley was a faithless swain who had forsaken Juliana; if Martha brought in the tea-tray she wondered when Dr.Cautley was coming back for another slice of Juliana's wedding-cake.
Mrs.Moon referred to a certain abominable piece of confectionery now crumbling away on a shelf in the sideboard, where, with a breach in its side and its sugar turret in ruins, it seemed to nod at Miss Quincey with all sorts of satirical suggestions.

And when Louisa sent her accounts of Teenie who lisped in German, Alexander who wrote Latin letters to his father, and Mildred who refused to read the New Testament in anything but Greek, and Miss Quincey remarked that if she had children she wouldn't bring them up so, the Old Lady laughed--"Tchee--Tchee! We all know about old maids' children." Miss Quincey said nothing to that; but she hardened her heart against Louisa's children, and against Louisa's husband and Louisa.

She couldn't think how Louisa could have married such a dreadful little man as Andrew Mackinnon, with his unmistakable accent and problematical linen.

The gentle creature who had never said a harsh word to anybody in her life became mysteriously cross and captious.