She'd nearly had enough. She was ready to go home, forget all about it. Be the birthdayless, motherless Mattie Browne for the rest of her life.

"Why, everything about the colonel seems so seated, so ingrafted in his nature, so--so very self-satisfied, that I am afraid it would be a difficult task to take the first step in amendment--to convince him of its necessity?

There he is, now. Bang went the front door open and shut. Harry shouted: “Hullo, you people. Down in five minutes.”

I must confess this is an inconstant people, especially to distinguished strangers: after bepraising them, bedining them, and bespeeching them, lest the rogues should, on their return to Europe, repay their hospitality by abusing them, as Dickens and Moore and others of that kidney did they take time with the whiphand, and anticipate the poor devil they have honoured by immediately abusing him themselves—…