Immured in the country, not sufficiently interested in life to read newspapers, she had heard rumours of some of the more important marriages, but had known nothing of the thousand small details which made for the weaving of the web.

Mrs.Treat Hilyar driving in a leisurely, accustomed fashion down Bond Street, and smiling casually at her compatriots, whose "sailing" was as much part of the natural order of their luxurious lives as their carriages, gave a definiteness to the situation.

Mina Thalberg, pulling down the embroidered frocks over the round legs of her English-looking children, seemed to narrow the width of the Atlantic Ocean between Liverpool and the docks on the Hudson River.
She returned to the hotel with an appetite for lunch and a new expression in her eyes which made Ughtred stare at her.
"Mother," he said, "you look different.

You look well.

It isn't only your new dress and your hair." The new style of her attire had certainly done much, and the maid who had been engaged to attend her was a woman who knew her duties.