Isabel Ostrander

“ I was on the verge of tears in my shame and disgust at their attitude, but some instinct warned me not to disclose Gilbert's identity. "And I didn't pick him up, Aunt Julie, not in the way you suggest. There was no harm whatever in my speaking to him. I have done nothing wrong."
"Nothing wrong? You wretched, low-bred little hussy! How dare you scrape acquaintance with a strange man!"
"Mother! Control yourself!" Lorna's voice in sharp command fell upon my stunned ears. "Maida meant, I am sure, to do nothing out of the way. ”

“ You're slick, Maida!"
"I most certainly have not flirted with him!" I returned hotly. "I have spoken to him casually. I am surprised at your daring to use such a tone to me, Monsieur!"
"And I am surprised at you, Maida!" Aunt Julie cried. Her voice was cold and cuttingly distinct, and the lisp was gone. "Who is this man you have picked up?"
"He is a—friend of the Barfords, to whom they have lent their bungalow for a time," I stammered. ”

“ It takes you sly ones to be up to something devilish the first chance you get! You're not dealing with your Miss Farmingdale, now, and pulling the wool over her eyes—or your father either! I'll see that you have precious little opportunity in the future to go about philandering with a strange man, you deceitful, unprincipled girl!"
Lorna tried to interrupt her torrent of abuse, but she turned upon them all in a fury. ”

“ Lorna intervened. "No harm has been done. Maida was a little indiscreet that is all. You are very silly to get so excited."
"You'll make a fool of yourself, if you don't shut up!" Alaric spoke for the first time since he had launched that bomb-shell about Gilbert's presence, and he spoke with a harsh authority which his mother, irate as she was, seemed to recognize.
I looked straight into her vixenish, snapping eyes.
"You forget yourself, Mrs. Smith," I said quietly, although my voice trembled. "I am your guest, and I will go to my room until you remember that fact." ”

“ Don't misunderstand me, I am warning you because I like you, because I have learned to care for you all over again! Mother can be very hard, very hateful when she wants to be, and you must realize that until your father comes for you, you are absolutely in her hands. ”

“ You are only just out of school, you are ignorant of the ways of the world, and of men and their motives, and you might so easily have gotten entangled in some love affair with this person, and then what would your father have said to me? ”