And Cap'n Ira concluded abruptly and with a return to his usual self-control.
— from Sheila of Big Wreck Cove: A Story of Cape Cod by James A. Cooper

He begged us not to inquire into the mysteries of his toilet, and refused to help us solve the riddle of the guests' cleanliness when the hotel was full.
— from Russian Rambles by Isabel Florence Hapgood

“But, oh!” cries my mistress, recovering herself after this scene, and returning to her usual sad tone, “'tis a shame that we should laugh and be making merry on a day when we ought to be down on our knees and asking pardon.”
— from Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges by William Makepeace Thackeray

In the Life of Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas , 1731, she writes of her grandfather, a Turkey-merchant:-- "He was very nice in the Mode of his Age--his Valet being some hours every morning in Starching his Beard and Curling his Whiskers during which Time a Gentleman whom he maintained as Companion always read to him upon some useful subject."
— from Two Centuries of Costume in America, Volume 1 (1620-1820) by Alice Morse Earle

Old Woman Abominable poor, as poor as we are, Money as rare to her unless she steal it, But for one civil Gown her Lady gave her, She may go bare, good Gentlewoman.
— from Rule a Wife, and Have a Wife Beaumont & Fletcher's Works (3 of 10) by John Fletcher

“That is very well,” he said, with a recurrence to his unseeing stare and dreamy tone, “because for me you really are not here.
— from A Woman's Will by Anne Warner

Mrs. Willis knew how necessary this was for poor Annie’s future, and, after giving the doctor an assurance that Nan’s whims and pleasures should be attended to for the next two or three days, she determined at the end of that time to assert her own authority with the child, and to insist on Annie working hard at her lessons, and returning to her usual school-room life.
— from A World of Girls: The Story of a School by L. T. Meade