If the reader wishes to know what "bed-spreads" and "sheet-shams" are, let him ask his intended, and let him see to it that he marries a woman who cannot tell him.
Mrs.Pratt had bought the antimacassars for the Towers, and secretly adored them until Ada pronounced them to be vulgar.

The number of things which Ada discovered to be vulgar increased every day, and included the greater part of her mother's wardrobe, much to the distress of that poor lady.

Mrs.Pratt had reached the size when it is prudent to concentrate a love of bright colors in one's parasol.

On this particular afternoon she shed tears over the fact that Ada refused to accompany her if her mother wore a unique garment of orange satin, covered with what appeared to be a plague of black worms.
Of course, the sale of work was combined with a garden-party, and a little after three o'clock carriage after carriage began to arrive, and Sybell, with a mournful, handsome, irreproachably dressed husband, took up her position on the south front to receive her guests.
The whole neighborhood had been invited, and it can generally be gauged with tolerable accuracy by a hostess of some experience who will respond to the call and who will stay away.

Sybell and her husband were among those who were not to be found at these festivities, neither were the Newhavens, save at their own, nor the Pontisburys, nor the Bishop of Southminster.