Please be seated.

I've heard Bessy speak of you.

By the way, the child hasn't come home yet.

How late she always is!" Miss Hill realized, with a protest at the unfairness of the situation, that to face this elegant lady, so smiling, so suave, so worldly, so graciously superior, and to tell her some unpleasant truths about her daughter, was a task by no means easy, and one almost sure to prove futile.

But Miss Hill never shirked her duty, and after all, her motive was a hope to help Bessy.
"Mrs.Bell, I've come on a matter of importance," began Miss Hill.
"But it is so delicate a one I don't know how to broach it.