George Tomkyns Chesney

“ How the girls stand it I'm sure I don't know; but I think women have more brass than men."
Perhaps the young man thought, by making a confidant of Colonel Yorke in this fashion, to disarm his criticism. At any rate, the latter, if he laughed at all, had no need after this revelation to laugh in his sleeve. And it will be seen that Mr. Peevor had acted the part of a Spartan father by his son, only making himself the example, instead of using the slave. Certainly, if he had deliberately tried to prevent the son from turning out a spendthrift he could not have succeeded better. ”

“ Nor should it be omitted that their brother had brought each of the little ones a magnificent doll. "They have got about half a hundred apiece of these articles already," he observed to Yorke, in giving them their presents, "but this sort of thing pleases Mrs. Peevor. I've got nothing for you," he said to his elder sisters: "it's no good bringing you anything; you've got everything already that girls can want." ”

“ Every one went pretty much his or her own way, but no one ever seemed out of temper; and there were none of those little bickerings sometimes observable in even the most affectionate circles — sparks of snappishness elicited by domestic friction. ”

“ Notwithstanding their difference of age. Maxwell and he had been on the footing of confidential friends; they had served together in the eventful defence of the Mustaphabad residency, and afterwards as close comrades throughout the rest of the sepoy war, and to Yorke alone had Maxwell confided his distress at Olivia's second marriage; and although he had left the regiment before ruin fell upon her and her husband, Maxwell had predicted some misfortune of the kind, and had himself told Yorke that he had left the regiment in order that he might not be present to witness it. ”

“ Well, they would behave like gentlemen, I know: but what is the good of having fellows here to be laughing in their sleeve all the time at the bad form in which things are done — the waste and show, and the lot of useless servants who do nothing but overeat themselves, and overdrink themselves too, very often? ”

“ Besides, our colonel, who got the regiment last year, don't like his officers to spend too much money. Our fellows are well connected enough, but they are not a rich lot; and we have lost some very good fellows, who had to go — that was in our late colonel's time — because the pace was too good. ”