"I wouldn't allow her.

I would make her see the shamefulness of it.

What a weak man Mr.White must be!" Yet if Mercy could have looked into the room she had just left, and have seen Stephen listening with a face unmoved, save for a certain compression of the mouth, and a look of patient endurance in the eyes, to a torrent of ill-nature from his mother, she would have recognized that he had strength, however much she might have undervalued its type.
"I should really think that you might have more consideration, Stephen, than to be so late to tea, when you know it is all I have to look forward to, all day long.

You stood a good half hour talking with that woman, Did you not know how late it was ?" "No, mother.

If I had, I should have come in." "I suppose you had your watch on, hadn't you ?" "Yes, mother." "Well, I'd like to know what excuse there is for a man's not knowing what time it is, when he has a watch in his pocket?
And then you must needs bring her in here, of all things,--when you know I hate to see people near my meal-times, and you must have known it was near supper-time.