She tried to remain aloof from courtly intrigues.

Ecstasy bears a strong resemblance to catalepsy: in both cases the patients, during the paroxysm, lose all connexion with the physical world, being deprived of sense and voluntary motion; but in ecstasy, associations of the most pleasing and enchanting nature are established with an ideal existence in an unknown region, which might perhaps be poetically designated the fairy land of an undescried Elysium.

You never asked us, replied Ashleigh, his vexation vanishing, …

She was on the other side of 70 and had had a hard life.