"Slipshod! They fit as close as your convictions, and would be as stiff and inexorable as logic if I didn't soften them with this newly-invented and about-to-be-patented ointment by the warmth of a cheerful fire and Margery's beaming countenance." Clement had been reading during this sentence.

Then he lifted his head, and said pointedly: "What I was going to advise _you_, Margery, is never to get into the habit of adopting sentiments till you are quite sure you really mean them.

It is by the painful experience of my own folly that I know what trouble it gives one afterwards.

If ever the time comes when you want to know your real opinion on any subject, the process of getting rid of ideas you have adopted without meaning them will not be an easy one." I am not as intellectual as the Arkwrights.

I can always see through Jack's jokes, but I am sometimes left far behind when Eleanor or Clement "take flight," as Jack calls it, on serious subjects.