Of course it's a long way off, Mother, and I should have liked to stay at home, to be a help to you and the girls; but one can't have all one wishes.

As far as I am concerned, myself, I would rather go out as a writer there, where I shall see strange sights and a strange country, than be stuck all my life at a desk in London.
"What is Uncle like ?" "He is a short man, my dear, rather stiff and pompous, with a very stiff cravat.

He used to give me his finger to shake, when I was a child, and I was always afraid of him.

He married a most disagreeable woman, only a year or two before I married, myself.

But I heard she died not very long afterwards;" and so Mrs.Marryat got talking of her early days and relations, and was quite in good spirits again, by the time her daughters returned from school; and she told them what she was now coming to regard as the good fortune which had befallen their brother.
The girls were greatly affected.