Daily Pym

‘Oh, this is a most reputable and old-established business,’ said Mr Bason. ‘They tell me that Queen Mary often used to pop in — in the old days, of course.’ 

‘That does sound reassuring,’ I said. ‘Any connection with royalty is that, don’t you think?’

‘With our royal family certainly,’ Mr Bason agreed, ‘though some one could mention wouldn’t inspire quite the same confidence.’

— A Glass of Blessings, chapter twenty one

‘You see, Wilmet, Marius has asked me to marry him — that’s what I’ve been wanting to tell you. Do you think it’s so very dreadful of him?’

I could hardly confess my first reaction to her news, which was the perhaps typically feminine one of astonishment that such a good looking man as Marius Ransome should want to marry anyone so dim and mousy as Mary Beamish.

— A Glass of Blessings, chapter twenty

‘Where did you meet him, if I may be so inquisitive?’

‘Why — at my French class.’

‘I see — that accounts for the French grammar by the bed, then.’

‘Yes — imagine it, Wilmet. The pathos of anyone not knowing French — I mean, not at all!’

‘It does seem strange,’ I admitted.

— A Glass of Blessings, chapter seventeen

‘Let me see — ah, yes, here it is. But my dear Grace, you put Quince Square, S.W. 11! The correct address is W.11, you know. No wonder it was delayed! It’s probably been to wherever S.W.11 may be — Balham or Barnes or Battersea — who knows.’ He tossed off the names with a light contemptuous air, as if it was scarcely believable that people should actually live in such places.

— No Fond Return of Love, chapter fourteen

Belinda was rather taken aback. She didn’t think she liked Mr. Mold very much. Of course one didn’t want to be snobbish, but it really was true that low origin always betrayed itself somewhere.

— Some Tame Gazelle, chapter eleven