fiefoe

The other side of the house was more interesting -

Mr. Willis of Columbia House, which boasted of a lodge and an entrance drive, a shrubbery and a paddock, and a two-stalled stable, and every sort of suburban magnificence,
He professed himself "serious," and proved it by snubbing his friends when they were prosperous, and steadily declining to take the slightest interest in their adversities.
"(On Willis's dinner party:) Charles looks so like a mute at a funeral that I cannot bring them out. However, one comfort is that our old grey gowns will do, and we want to wear them out."
...just as people stare when a fresh beast arrives at the Zoological Gardens. A "Willis-making-the-best-of-it" was quite a new specimen, a rare and interesting animal;

Mrs. Hopkinson: "It is odd that the nobility will have 'Fracaws, and chère amies, and picking anecdotes,' but I suppose in our class of life we have the same things, only with English names."
Mrs. Hopkinson looked at (the painting) rather sentimentally, and said, "At all events, it was done from John, and the buttons on his coat are all right, and look very natural."
(The girls...) affirmed that when their mother understood Rachel a little better she would like her. "My dears, I had much better like her at once, if you wish it; for if I wait till I understand her, I shall just be uncharitable for the rest of my days."
"But I wish John would come home; and do, Janet, pick up my bonnet, I shall want it for the wedding, and then both of you sit down and tell me how all this came about, and you may both talk at once this time, though I do not like it in general."

Janet: "Mr. Greydon walked part of the way with me." And then there followed a pause: the fact was too important to be mixed up with meaner subjects; and Mr. Greydon's remarks on the promising crops, and the prevalence of whooping cough in the school, and the slight improvement of little Charlie, were put up for private rumination. They were too sacred to be imparted even to Rose.

"The Semi-Dettached House"