One asks so little more than that, that it seemed almost half the battle.

I began to consider phrases of thanks and acceptance and then uttered them.
I never quite understood the bearings of that scene; never quite whether my aunt really knew that my sister was not my sister.

She was a wonderfully clever woman of the unscrupulous order, with a _sang-froid_ and self-possession well calculated to let her cut short any inconvenient revelations.

It was as if she had had long practice in the art, though I cannot say what occasion she can have had for its practice--perhaps for the confounding of wavering avowers of Dissent at home.
I used to think that she knew, if not all, at least a portion; that the weight that undoubtedly was upon her mind was nothing else but that.

She broke up, was breaking up from day to day, and I can think of no other reason.