It had been outworn in Mr.Karkeek's office; rust had intensified its original defects of design, and it produced the minimum of result with the maximum of means.

Nevertheless, the young woman loved it.

She clenched her hands and her teeth, and she frowned, as though she loved it.

And when she had sufficiently crushed the letter-book in the press, she lovingly unscrewed and drew forth the book; and with solicitude she opened the book on the smaller table, and tenderly detached the blotting-paper from the damp tissue paper, and at last extracted the copied letter and examined its surface.
"Smudged!" she murmured, tragic.
And the excellent ass Dayson, always facetiously cheerful, and without a grain of humour, remarked: "Copiousness with the H2O, Miss Lessways, is the father of smudged epistles.

I'm ready to go through these proofs with you as soon as you are." He was over thirty.