Humbug

_For the friendship of our days, For your very pleasant ways, For the many times we've laughed, For your kindness to my craft, Let me dedicate to you The book of mine I hold mos...

Vonnie would not tell about her earache when it began because she was afraid of a fuss, and she would not tell about it afterwards for fear of being scolded because she had not...

"Dear me, what an imperious little person this is!" said Miss Cleeve very brightly indeed. "Gently, gently, Lily, if you please. If you do your lessons very nicely and are a goo...

It was the question of buying sweets, all over again. Certain propensities, for reasons never specified, were evidently so undesirable that the existence of them might not even...

"Our Dorothy is thirteen and a half and stands five-foot five in her stockings. Five-foot five, and a back like a ramrod. Now, Lily isn't five-foot five, I'm positive of that. W...

She felt certain of distinguishing herself, although the first part given to her was a tiny one, and she noted with relief that her voice, when she spoke her brief sentences, so...

When they played tennis at the Hardinges' house, Lily was generally assigned to Colin for a partner, as it was necessary to equalize the sets by coupling the weakest player, as...

"I have no doubt of it," mechanically said Philip. "Thank you a thousand times for your help. I shall think over our discussion, and let you know what I decide."

"He was so full of _petits soins intimes_, dear person! There we were in one of those enormous glittering _pâtisseries_ shops, and I couldn't prevent him from loading me with gr...

"How significant that contrast was, _n'est-ce pas_? The frankly _bourgeois_ enthusiasm of our friend--his _naif_ admiration for the obvious--and then that affectation of precise...

Lily said: "I think I do," because she felt that that was what he wanted her to say, and then was terrified at the thought of what his rejoinder might be.

It had certainly never seemed important whether or no Nicholas sat next to her at tea-time, nor had she any particular recollection of ever distinguishing his footfall from that...

Lily herself derived unforeseen excitement and pleasure from all these accessories to her engagement, her father's intense gratification and pride in her, the warmly-worded cong...

It was a surprise to Lily Aubray to learn, while she was still upon her honeymoon, that her husband considered her to have been a spoilt child in the house of her father.

"Lily is a good, happy little child, I hope," said Philip quite automatically, making use of the formula that he had always opposed to any criticism of his parental methods.

"Oh, Lily, if only it hadn't been so awfully, awfully sudden! We'd all had dinner together, you know, just as usual, and he only stayed in the drawing-room a few minutes, and th...

How could one compare the two? The kindly derision of common-sense sounded in her imagination, insensibly clothing itself in the accents of that embodiment of common-sense, Moni...

"No--no, I suppose not. But she's taking, don't you think? Something very arresting about her, altogether. I must say, I can't help admiring her spirit. She's told you how they...

His ear and his trained mind alike noted the futility of her speech, but his masculinity was all the while increasingly aware of that in her which, for want of a better word, he...

"Lose all, and you shall find all!" she declared. "The old Prophets knew much, my Lily. Listen, child. It will cost you, to break through the old traditions--who knows it better...

"Lily, it's you I love, my darling, my little wife. I don't know if a woman can understand how these things happen.... We haven't been happy together lately and I was lonely and...

"And I do hope you'll have a boy, dear. I was dreadfully disappointed when all my three were girls, and so was poor dear Charlie, though he was much too kind to say so. And then...