"She always was quiet as a child.
While we were smashing everything, she would never crack a teacup." "I wish she would break something now," said Fanny, "and then perhaps we should get to talk about it." But she did not on this account give over loving her sister-in-law.

She probably valued her the more, unconsciously, for not having those aptitudes with which she herself was endowed.

And then after two days Lady Lufton called: of course it may be supposed that Fanny had said a good deal to her new inmate about Lady Lufton.

A neighbour of that kind in the country exercises so large an influence upon the whole tenor of one's life, that to abstain from such talk is out of the question.

Mrs.Robarts had been brought up almost under the dowager's wing, and of course she regarded her as being worthy of much talking.