I'm sure my brains work better when they're lubricated with tea, declared Bess Harrison, tilting back her chair at a comfortable though rather dangerous angle, and accepting the queen-cake which Lottie Lowman offered her.

In its recoil from the gross anthropopathy of the vulgar notions, it falls into the vacuum of absolute apathy.

Bangs beset her at every turn, meeting her in her walks and rides, coming on her when she was in the field, and could not escape from him, and urging his suit with persuasions, promises, and threats, determined to win her, in spite of the most firm and decided rejection repeated again and again. […] Bangs waxed more and more wroth at her steadfast refusal to bend to his will.

The helmsman began to sing a monotonous, Levantine lanterloo.