Ethel Turner

“ Meg was standing on the front verandah, a troubled look in her eyes.
"Oh, there you are!" she said.
"Here we are," said Nellie. She drooped her eyes guiltily. "Is the tea cold?"
But Meg did not answer her.
"I wish you'd come and look at Essie, Alan," she said. "She's been eating pastry, and it's upset her, poor little thing. I don't like her looks."
"Does her head ache?" Nellie asked with dry lips.
"She says her head aches, her throat aches, and her legs ache,—everything aches," was Meg's answer. "Esther always gives her aconite if she's out of sorts, Alan. ”

“ Meg suggested the "Essays of Elia," "The Professor at the Breakfast Table," "Sesame and Lilies," Lives of various poets.
"You can go then gradually to something deeper," she said. "I'm afraid you might be discouraged if you started on anything more solid just yet."
But Nellie's zeal was too tremendous for half measures.
During the morning of the day after the dinner party, Meg had occasion to go into the nursery for something or other during Miss Monson's hours, and with difficulty restrained a smile.
Nellie always studied—or pretended to—at a rickety-legged draught-table in the window. ”

“ The crochet needle was slipped out of the sixth row of the petticoat and made to work fleecy white wool up into that pretty style of head wrap known as a "fascinator."
"Oh, I didn't do anything so very dreadful, after all," she said to herself, with the blunted memory of ten days. "Dear old Meg is always a little inclined to make mountains out of molehills." ”