“She was not often invited to join in the conversation of the others, nor did she desire it. Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.”

“Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.”

“She would make facial expressions as though she were having conversations with people in her head.They seemed to turn into debates more often than not,judging by the activity on her forehead...It was almost the conversations in her head were loud enough to fill her silence.”

“Nor could she help feeling, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.”

“She had shown Laura that David was less hers than she had ever thought and the pieces of him she did own were being taken.”

“She did not really like her. She would not be in a hurry to find fault, but she suspected that there was no elegance, ease, but not elegance... Her person was rather good; her face not unpretty; but neither feature nor air, nor voice, nor manner were elegant.”