Baroness Orczy

“ All that she knew was that when he was brought before her helpless and pinioned she already loved him, and that since that moment love had grown and strengthened until her whole heart was given to that same nameless soldier of fortune whom she had first despised. ”

“ As soon as I knew that my daughter was here I came as fast as a sleigh and the three best horses in my stables could bring me. I had no thought, of course, of seeing you here."
"I had no thought that you should see me, sir," said a voice which by its vibrating tones had the power of sending the hot blood rushing to the listener's neck and cheeks. "Had I not entered the yard just as your sledge turned in under the gateway, you had not been offended by mine unworthy presence." ”

“ Alas! the last few days had seen that mood submerged into an ocean of sorrow and humiliation, and Maria—though angered at having been wakened out of a first sleep—was very glad to see her darling looking so alert and so brisk. ”

“ Keep your money, sir, it is more fit for you to handle than for me. Let me go back to my shiftlessness, my penury, my freedom, eat my fill to-day, starve to-morrow, and one day look up at the stars from the lowly earth, with a kindly bullet in my chest that does not mean to blunder. ”

“ Nay! do not protest," he added earnestly, "Nicolaes, as you see, is of the same opinion."
"May Heaven reward you, sir, for that kindly thought of me," said Diogenes more seriously, "it will cheer me in the future, when I and all my doings will have faded from your ken."
"You are not leaving Holland, sir?"
"Not just now, mynheer, while there is so much fighting to be done. The Stadtholder hath need of soldiers...."
"And he will, sir, find none better than you throughout the world. And with a goodly fortune to help you...." ”

“ A fine record forsooth: and ere he ordered me to be hanged my Lord of Stoutenburg did loudly proclaim me as such before his friends and before his followers."
"His friends, sir, are the sons of my friends. I will loudly proclaim you what you truly are: a brave man, a loyal soldier, a noble gentleman! Nicolaes has told me every phase of his association with you, from his shameful proposal to you in regard to his own sister, down to this moment when you still desired that Gilda and I should remain in ignorance of his guilt." ”