Henry Handel Richardson

“ Just let him hang round, and throw sheep’s-eyes, till he’s as soft as a jellyfish, and when he’s right down ripe, roaring mad, go off and pretend to do a mash with some one else. That’s the way to glue him, chicken.”
“But you don’t have anything of him that way,” objected Laura.
Maria laughed herself red in the face. “What’n earth more d’you want? Why, he’ll pester you with letters, world without end, and look as black as your shoe if you so much as wink at another boy. As for a kiss, if he gets a chance of one he’ll take it you can bet your bottom dollar on that.” ”

“ For days Laura avoided even thinking of this unlucky visit. Privately, she informed herself that Tilly’s wealthy relations were a “rude, stupid lot”; and, stuffing her fingers in her ears, memorised pages with a dispatch that deadened thought.
When, however, the first smart had passed and she was able to go back on what had happened, a soreness at her own failure was the abiding result: and this, though Tilly mercifully spared her the “dull as ditchwater”, that was Bob’s final verdict.—But the fact that the invitation was not repeated told Laura enough. ”

“ As for Inez, who had not only a pretty face but was graceful and slender-limbed as a greyhound, Inez no longer needed to worry over artificial charms, or to dwell self-consciously on her development; serious admirers were not lacking, and with one of these, a young man some eight years older than herself, she had had for the past three months a sort of understanding. For her, as for so many others, the time she had still to spend at school was as purgatory before paradise. To top all, one of the day-scholars in Laura’s class was actually engaged to be married ”