Great Expectations

There were three ladies in the room and one gentleman. Before I had been

standing at the window five minutes, they somehow conveyed to me that

they were all toadies and humbugs, but that each of them pretended not

to know that the others were toadies and humbugs: because the admission

that he or she did know it, would have made him or her out to be a toady

and humbug.

They all had a listless and dreary air of waiting somebody's pleasure,

and the most talkative of the ladies had to speak quite rigidly to

repress a yawn. This lady, whose name was Camilla, very much reminded

me of my sister, with the difference that she was older, and (as I found

when I caught sight of her) of a blunter cast of features. Indeed, when

I knew her better I began to think it was a Mercy she had any features

at all, so very blank and high was the dead wall of her face.

"Poor dear soul!" said this lady, with an abruptness of manner quite my

sister's. "Nobody's enemy but his own!"

"It would be much more commendable to be somebody else's enemy," said

the gentleman; "far more natural."

"Cousin Raymond," observed another lady, "we are to love our neighbor."

"Sarah Pocket," returned Cousin Raymond, "if a man is not his own

neighbor, who is?"

Miss Pocket laughed, and Camilla laughed and said (checking a yawn),

"The idea!" But I thought they seemed to think it rather a good

idea too. The other lady, who had not spoken yet, said gravely and

emphatically, "Very true!"

"Poor soul!" Camilla presently went on (I knew they had all been looking

at me in the mean time), "he is so very strange! Would anyone believe

that when Tom's wife died, he actually could not be induced to see the

importance of the children's having the deepest of trimmings to their

mourning? 'Good Lord!' says he, 'Camilla, what can it signify so long

as the poor bereaved little things are in black?' So like Matthew! The

idea!"

"Good points in him, good points in him," said Cousin Raymond; "Heaven

forbid I should deny good points in him; but he never had, and he never

will have, any sense of the proprieties."

"You know I was obliged," said Camilla,--"I was obliged to be firm. I

said, 'It WILL NOT DO, for the credit of the family.' I told him that,

without deep trimmings, the family was disgraced. I cried about it from

breakfast till dinner. I injured my digestion. And at last he flung out

in his violent way, and said, with a D, 'Then do as you like.' Thank

Goodness it will always be a consolation to me to know that I instantly

went out in a pouring rain and bought the things."