Nothing could be urged against them; they were unexceptionable.

The doctor, a chatty, straightforward, energetic man, of great intellect and learning, and emphatically a gentleman; his wife attracting by her unobtrusive gentleness; his daughter by her grace and modest self-possession.
Whatever Maude Kirton might do, she could never, for very shame, again attempt to disparage them.

Surely there was no just reason for the hatred which took possession of Maude's heart; a hatred that could never be plucked out again.
But Maude knew how to dissemble.

It pleased her to affect a sudden and violent friendship for Anne.
"Hartledon told me how much I should like you," she whispered, as they sat together on the sofa after dinner, to which Maude had drawn her.

"He said I should find you the dearest girl I ever met; and I do so.