(How strange to think that there was a time when pity was not the feeling that leaped to Grizel's bosom first!) She did not care for study.

She learned French and the pianoforte to please the doctor; but she preferred to be sewing or dusting.

When she might have been reading, she was perhaps making for herself one of those costumes that annoyed every lady of Thrums who employed a dressmaker; or, more probably, it was a delicious garment for a baby; for as soon as Grizel heard that there was a new baby anywhere, all her intellect deserted her, and she became a slave.

Books often irritated her because she disagreed with the author; and it was a torment to her to find other people holding to their views when she was so certain that hers were right.

In church she sometimes rocked her arms; and the old doctor by her side knew that it was because she could not get up and contradict the minister.
She was, I presume, the only young lady who ever dared to say that she hated Sunday because there was so much sitting still in it.
Sitting still did not suit Grizel.