He always entered her drawing-room like that.

Ah! that little secret of a mutual respect.

Some people who are young now will wish, before they have grown old, that they had known it.
He shook hands with Lady Cantourne and with Millicent.

Then he stood with a deferential half-bow, waiting for the introduction to the girl who was young enough to be his daughter--almost to be his granddaughter.
There was something pathetic and yet proud in this old man's uncompromising adherence to the lessons of his youth.
"Sir John Meredith--Miss Gordon." The beginning--the thin end of the wedge, as the homely saying has it--the end which we introduce almost every day of our lives, little suspecting to what it may broaden out.
"I had the pleasure of seeing you last night," said Sir John at once, "at Lady Fitzmannering's evening party, or 'At Home,' I believe we call them nowadays.

Some of the guests read the invitation too much au pied de la lettre for my taste.