She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, […]; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid, […]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher.

Zilpha, being just Hiram's age, as was woman's right, blossomed first, and became a demure, marriageable little Mormoness in long dresses (or, as a perverse Gentile friend used to call Mormon little girls, a Mormoniculess, Mormon little boys being similarly Mormonicles)," while Hiram was blushing at the shortness of a roundabout, which he felt still more ashamed to exchange for that uneasily self-conscious garment, a coat with tails.

Well then, I declare, I'd rather see Miss Lawton in that old poke – old as it is! –than in the finest new bonnet the Squire's lady ever wore.

‘The tawaif has graduated from mere singing to dancing.’