Anne Douglas Sedgwick

“ But so one might mislead oneself and other people. And as all these thoughts went through Alix's mind, while Lady Mary laid out her pretty cards, there floated across it a memory of the shrewd old face of a priest to whom she had once gone for the yearly, the reluctant, confession. If one was more circumspect than any English person, was it because of the generations of Catholicism in one's blood? One's confessor always took so many disagreeable things for granted, about life and about human nature ”

“ We must dress Alix in the Gainsborough Blue Boy clothes one day, Jerry, to show off her long legs. We must have a little fancy-dress ball in the Easter holidays.”
“Oh, but I'm afraid I cannot be here in the Easter holidays,” said Alix. “You see, those are Giles's holidays, too. I should miss him.”
“You'll be coming here off and on, I hope;—and Giles will, too, perhaps,” smiled Lady Mary. “I can always send the car for you. Where's Marigold, Jerry? Not up yet?”
“You know, she looks rather like the Blue Boy, doesn't she?” said Jerry. “Only his eyes aren't blue, and he has a gentler face. ”

“ Lady Mary had finished her morning tasks when Alix returned and was sitting near the fire with a little table before her on which she was laying out tiny patience cards. Alix again thought of a lady in a hennin as she saw her there in her long, grey, fur-bordered robe; a hennin would have been so becoming to her.
“Curl up in the big chair,” she said. “You must be tired, and you'll find yourself very stiff by to-morrow. Do you smoke? Not yet? Good. I'm glad not. Joan and Patience both do already, and I'm sure it's bad for them. That's all their life it seems to me; smoking and dancing. ”

“ They would have taken it in and cared for it always, even if it had not been a very nice one.”
Lady Mary laughed. “Well, you are a very nice one. I liked Giles's mother that day in Oxford. She is very earnest, isn't she?”
“Yes. And very good.”
“But she hasn't much sense of humour?”
“She is so busy all the time,” said Alix. “When one is so very busy taking care of people, there is not much time for humour. But she can be quite playful; like a young girl.” ”

“ Bradley; and if they swallowed you down, asking no questions, was it because they were so extraordinarily kind, or because they were so sure of themselves and of their conditions that they could not conceive of your doing them any harm? ”