“Well, this is a nice thing! A nice thing this schoolmastering! Up at seven, and in a room with a black fire⁠ ⁠… I should have thought it might have occurred to one out of forty boys to poke it⁠ ⁠… an...

“This is a good room to come back to,” said Herrick. “That hall and the woman, and poor Merry shuffling up to do his duty! It made me shiver.” “The sight of duty does make one shiver,” said Miss Herri...

The Reverend Peter Fletcher was a frail little elderly man, with a long, black beard, and a colourless face that carried a humorous kindliness. His wife, Theresa, was a large old woman, with fierce ey...

“Now, I don’t know how it is,” said Mr. Merry, “but you all look half-dressed, and in a state of slovenliness, somehow. I can’t understand how it is that my boys cannot manage to look like gentlemen. ...

“Are the boys coming?” said the Reverend Henry Bentley. “They are out of their room, Father,” said his daughter. “I asked you if they were coming.” “They are out of their room, Father. We are all a li...

“I hope, Uncle Peter,” said Francis, “that Mr. Herrick and Mr. Bumpus will excuse me for not being present at their literary inauguration. I have very little time to myself, and I am obliged to deny m...

“Miss Basden, just come and put a stop to all this, will you? Here is Mother, getting all into a state, with nobody thought of coming! I wish this dinner-party was at the bottom of the sea. Just see t...