Now she was his one resource, and the unfortunate man, rashly entering into a contest of wit, found himself badly worsted by her ready tongue.

He declared that she was worse than her mother, at which the unabashed young woman replied that the superiority of parents was the last retort of the vanquished.

He registered an inward vow that Miss Afflint should be used on the morrow as a weapon to quell Mr.Stocks.
When Alice escaped to the drawing-room she found Bertha and her sister--a younger and ruddier copy--busy with the letters which had arrived by the evening post.

Lady Manorwater, who reserved her correspondence for the late hours, seized upon the girl and carried her off to sit by the great French windows from which lawn and park sloped down to the moorland loch.

She chattered pleasantly about many things, and then innocently and abruptly asked her if she had not found her companion at table amusing.
Alice, unaccustomed to fiction, gave a hesitating "Yes," at which her hostess looked pleased.