For the first year these difficulties had not been felt; Reardon made a point of leaving the front room at his wife's disposal from three to six; it was only when dread of the future began to press upon him that he sat in the study all day long.

You see how complicated were the miseries of the situation; one torment involved another, and in every quarter subjects of discontent were multiplied.
Mrs Carter would have taken it ill had she known that Amy did not regard her as strictly an intimate.

They addressed each other by their Christian names, and conversed without ceremony; but Amy was always dissatisfied when the well-dressed young woman burst with laughter and animated talk into this abode of concealed poverty.

Edith was not the kind of person with whom one can quarrel; she had a kind heart, and was never disagreeably pretentious.

Had circumstances allowed it, Amy would have given frank welcome to such friendship; she would have been glad to accept as many invitations as Edith chose to offer.