It is past their tea-time." "We came ourselves, mother," said Regie.

"Fruaelein said we might, to show Auntie Hester our secrets." "Well, never mind; run away now," said the poor mother, sitting down heavily in a low chair, "and take Boulou." "You are tired out," said Hester, slipping on to her knees and unlacing her sister-in-law's brown boots.
Mrs.Gresley looked with a shade of compunction at the fragile kneeling figure, with its face crimsoned by the act of stooping and by the obduracy of the dust-ingrained boot-laces.

But as she looked she noticed the flushed cheeks, and, being a diviner of spirits, wondered what Hester was ashamed of now.
As Hester rose her sister-in-law held out, with momentary hesitation, a thin paper bag, in which an oval form allowed its moist presence to be discerned by partial adhesion to its envelope.
"I saw you ate no luncheon, Hester, so I have brought you a little sole for supper." Some of us poor Marthas spend all our existence, so to speak, in the kitchens of life.

We never get so far as the drawing-room.

Our conquests, our self-denials, are achieved through the medium of suet and lard and necks of mutton.