Besides, they don't care for this kind of thing,--not as you do." "Jane is utilitarian to the backbone, I know," said Lily, "and Bessy doesn't like getting up ladders." "As for ladders," said Mrs.Boyce, defending her daughter, "I am not quite sure that Bessy isn't right.

You don't mean to say that you did all those in the capitals yourself ?" "Every twig, with Hopkins to hold the ladder and cut the sticks; and as Hopkins is just a hundred and one years old, we could have done it pretty nearly as well alone." "I do not think that," said Grace.
"He has been grumbling all the time," said Lily, "and swears he never will have the laurels so robbed again.

Five or six years ago he used to declare that death would certainly save him from the pain of such another desecration before the next Christmas; but he has given up that foolish notion now, and talks as though he meant to protect the Allington shrubs at any rate to the end of this century." "I am sure we gave our share from the parsonage," said Mrs.Boyce, who never understood a joke.
"All the best came from the parsonage, as of course they ought," said Lily.

"But Hopkins had to make up the deficiency.

And as my uncle told him to take the haycart for them instead of the hand-barrow, he is broken-hearted." "I am sure he was very good-natured," said Grace.
"Nevertheless he is broken-hearted; and I am very good-natured too, and I am broken-backed.