Ethel Turner

“ Nellie said, with a fine swerve of her delicate lips. "Upon my word, Pip, I should think, with all the pretty girls there are about here, you might fall in love with a lady."
"She is a lady," Pip contended hotly. "She works with her needle, perhaps—she's not been brought up in selfish idleness like you girls—but her manners are a long sight better than yours, and she'd blush to say small-minded things like you do."
It occurred to Meg that it was small-minded, and she said no more. ”

“ Our father is a gentleman, our mother was a lady—we are ladies."
"Not if we act like servant girls," Meg said quietly. "If you found a bit of glass under all the conditions you'd expect to find a diamond, and yet it didn't shine like a diamond, then it wouldn't be a diamond, would it?" ”

“ Meg said slowly, and colouring on her own account. "Pip, I don't know how you can, really I don't—a common little dressmaker. Oh yes, we know all about it; Peter saw you last night, and Poppet the night before."
"Peter be—Poppet be—— What the deuce do you mean spying after me?" stormed Pip, sitting upright and looking wrathfully at his sister. "If I choose to take a walk with a pretty girl, is it any concern of yours?"
[Illustration: " 'PRETTY!' SAID NELL—'PRETTY! WHY, SHE BLACKENS HER EYEBROWS, I'M CERTAIN.' "]
"Pretty!" ”