Sarah Brown thought he was suppressing excitement, however, and indeed he presently said: "I say, won't it be fun lying about all this to posterity and Americans, and other defenceless innocents." Opposite to them, on two campstools, sat a young bridling mother of fifty, with her old hard daughter of sixteen or so.

Hard was that daughter in every way; you would have counted her age in winters, not in summers, so obviously untender were her years.

An iron plait of hair lay for about six inches down her spine; her feet and ankles made the campstool on which she sat, looking pathetically ethereal.

Of such stuff as this is the backbone of England made, which is perhaps why the backbone of England sometimes seems so sadly inflexible.
There was a screeching noise outside, followed by an incredible crash.
It seemed to cleave a bottomless abyss between one second and the next, so that one seemed to be conscious for the first time in an astonished and astonishing world.
Lady Arabel said: "Boys will be boys, of course I know, but really this is going a little too far.

Pinehurst's one hobby was his windows." The campstooled mother gave a luxurious little shriek as soon as the crash was safely over.