Edith Wharton

“ Darrow asked, picking up a book from the table.
"Oh, thank you!"
He held it out to her and she took it and moved to the door.
"Wait a minute, please, Miss Viner," Anna said; and as the girl turned back, she went on with her quiet smile: "Effie told us you'd gone to your room with a headache. You mustn't sit up over tomorrow's lessons if you don't feel well."
Sophy's blush deepened. "But you see I have to. Latin's one of my weak points, and there's generally only one page of this book between me and Effie." She threw the words off with a half-ironic smile. ”

“ It's all the odder because my mother-in-law, since her second marriage, has lived so much in the country that she's practically lost sight of all her other American friends. Besides which, you can see how completely she has identified herself with Monsieur de Chantelle's nationality and adopted French habits and prejudices. Yet when anything goes wrong she always sends for Adelaide Painter, who's more American than the Stars and Stripes, and might have left South Braintree yesterday, if she hadn't, rather, brought it over with her in her trunk. ”

“ I don't really believe I'll ever be much better than I am now."
"Let Owen have his tea first," her mother suggested; but the young man, declining the offer, propped his gun against the wall, and, lighting a cigarette, began to pace up and down the room in a way that reminded Darrow of his own caged wanderings. Effie pursued him with her blandishments, and for a while he poured out to her a low-voiced stream of nonsense; then he sat down beside his step-mother and leaned over to help himself to tea.
"Where's Miss Viner?" he asked, as Effie climbed up on him. ”