‘You mean that he appears silly.’ ‘No, no,’ said Dorothea, recollecting herself, and laying her hand on her sister’s a moment, ‘but he does not talk equally well on all subjects.’ ‘I should think none but disagreeable people do,’ said Celia, in her usual purring way. ‘They must be very dreadful to live with. Only think! at breakfast, and always.’ D

It was a great comfort to her, to be sure of exciting no interest in one person at least among their circle of friends; a great comfort to know that there was one who would meet her without feeling any curiosity after particulars, or any anxiety for her sister’s health. Every qualification is raised at times, by the circumstances of the moment, to

If the right tack implied anything more precise than the rest of Mr Brooke’s speech, Mr Casaubon silently hoped that it referred to some occupation at a great distance from Lowick. He had disliked Will while he helped him, but he had begun to dislike him still more now that Will had declined his help. That is the way with us when we have any uneasy

He was not in the least jealous of the interest with which Dorothea had looked up at Mr Casaubon: it never occurred to him that a girl to whom he was meditating an offer of marriage could care for a dried bookworm towards fifty,