Can we, Uncle Charles ?" "Impossible, Molly.

Rather bread and butter at home than a mixed biscuit in the open air without Miss Deyncourt." "Is Mrs.Alwynn suffering ?" asked Lady Mary, politely, down the table.
Ruth explained that she was not in ill-health, but that she did wish to be left alone; and Ralph was "hushed" again.
Lady Mary was annoyed, or, more properly speaking, she was "moved in the spirit," which in a Churchwoman seems to be the same thing as annoyance in the unregenerate or unorthodox mind.

She regretted Ruth's departure more than any one, except perhaps Ruth herself.

She had watched the girl very narrowly, and she had seen nothing to make her alter the opinion she had formed of her; indeed, she was inclined to advance beyond it.
Even she could not suspect that Ruth had "played her cards well;" although she would have aided and abetted her in any way in her power, if Ruth had shown the slightest consciousness of holding cards at all, or being desirous of playing them.

Her frank yet reserved manner, her distinguished appearance, her sense of humor (which Lady Mary did not understand, but which she perceived others did), and the quiet _savoir faire_ of her treatment of Dare's advances, all enhanced her greatly in the eyes of her would-be aunt.