And Cecilia—she is really talented, though a commonplace creature like myself can hardly give you an idea in just what direction.
Or this one:
As to Irene, apart from her voice, which is really exceptional, she is Francis over again—Francis as he was, a high-spirited, reckless, devil-may-care fellow, winning and tyrannical, as we all remember him in the old days when the world was young.
Or even this:
I am afraid Kate will have to teach school, young as she is. I can't tell you how I dread the long years of drudgery I see before this slender, spirited child—she is little more than that. Think, Miles, of these motherless children growing up in this wretched hole without the smallest advantage, and, if you can, help them; or get some one else to. Couldn't you take Kate into your own family? I'm sure she'd marry well, and Nora wouldn't be troubled with her long. She's really very pretty. Or couldn't you send me a little something to spend on clothes for her? Or couldn't Nora be persuaded to send her—
"Well," thundered Madigan, standing over her, "it must be pretty familiar to you. Suppose you read what Nora says."
Miss Madigan put her own letter away with a sigh. It was really unaccountable that Miles could have resisted it.
"Miles passed away six weeks ago,"
she read aloud in an awed voice.
"He had been ailing all spring. This letter, which came a fortnight since, I opened, of course, and return it to you that you may be made aware (if you are not already) of the demands Anne makes upon comparative strangers.
"For myself, I regret very much that your affairs are in such a bad state. Anne says that there are six of your children, all girls; but that can't be true—she always loved to exaggerate miseries; it must be that her writing is so illegible that—"