She was not mad about any sport or any fad.

She loved her father, her aunt, her cousins of the Tancred family, and her friend, Lady Anningford.

She was, in short, a fine character and a great lady.
"I have come to tell you such a piece of news, Ethelrida," Tristram said as he sat down beside her on the chintz-covered sofa.

Ethelrida's tastes in furniture and decorations were of the simplest in her own room.
"Guess what it is!" "How can I, Tristram?
Mary is really going to marry Lord Henry ?" "Not that I know of as yet, but I daresay she will, some day.

No, guess again; it is about a marriage." She poured him out some tea and indicated the bread and butter.
Tristram, she knew, loved her stillroom maid's brown bread and butter.
"A man, or a woman ?" she asked, meditatively.
"A man--ME!" he said, with reckless grammar.
"You, Tristram!" Ethelrida exclaimed, with as much excitement as she ever permitted herself.