Anne Douglas Sedgwick

“ That was a bird we always knew, even”—Alix paused—“even before your brother told us more of birds. Flocks come in Autumn to the thistles on the cliffs outside our gate. When they all fly together one sees the squares of gold on their wings—it makes a pattern on the sky, like a chain of golden coins; monsieur de Maubert's strange old square coins. And their little twitter is like the chink of thin gold. We love them, Maman and I, and there is a tall ash-tree in the garden where they often perch in summer. You will see them, Giles. ”

“ Even when the lady, still mysteriously aggrieved in her furthest corner, murmured resentfully on about les anglais qui viennent nous déranger, Alix glanced meditatively at her for a moment and then resumed her survey of the landscape, indifferent to the misapprehension; and since Giles could not repress a smile, the lady, who still held up her scarf in retrospective protest, kept indignant eyes upon him.
“Now, you know, you are a worse-tempered people than we are. She's still nursing her wrongs,” Giles murmured, and Alix, glancing at the lady of the névralgie, answered, “She is negligible.” ”

“ Two men sat further on; one young, with high, ardent, excited eyes, like a collie's, in a thin head; the other obese and red with white hair en brosse and a purple nip of ribbon in his button-hole. They leaned across the carriage towards each other and talked without cessation, rapping each other on the chest to a constant refrain of: “Puis—il me dit;—Et—je lui dis.” ”