Only two years ago she was a romping girl, and now she's this!
— from Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

There's a piece o' sheeting I could give you as that squinting Kitty spun—she was a rare girl to spin, for all she squinted, and the children couldn't abide her; and, you know, the spinning's going on constant, and there's new linen wove twice as fast as the old wears out.
— from Adam Bede by George Eliot

The opima were the spoils which a Roman general could only win from the king, or general, of the enemy, whom he had slain with his own hands: and no more than three such examples are celebrated in the victorious ages of Rome.]
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Table of Contents with links in the HTML file to the two Project Gutenberg editions (12 volumes) by Edward Gibbon

She was all respectful gratitude to Mrs. Sedley; delighted beyond measure at the Bazaars; and in a whirl of wonder at the theatre, whither the good-natured lady took her.
— from Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

He jumped up from the sofa and suddenly, with a rapid gesture, snatched up the revolver from the window, ran with it into the next room, and closed the door behind him.
— from The Possessed (The Devils) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

You will excuse me,” he said, with a rather ghastly smile, “for being well acquainted with my secretarial duties.”
— from The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare by G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton

Cut the sob-stuff,” said W. A. Rogers genially.
— from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

6 The go-between said she was a respectable girl, and would never allow herself to be seen; however, it was arranged that they should go to the house together, and await a good opportunity.
— from Myths and Legends of China by E. T. C. (Edward Theodore Chalmers) Werner

The second sister was Fanny, a very pretty little girl; Mrs. Bloomfield assured me she was a remarkably gentle child, and required encouragement: she had not learned anything yet; but in a few days, she would be four years old, and then she might take her first lesson in the alphabet, and be promoted to the schoolroom.
— from Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë

“If it depended on me, teacher,” he said, standing before Anne with his hands in his pockets and his beautiful little face shadowed with sudden care, “You should have shortbread with a right good will.
— from Anne of Avonlea by L. M. (Lucy Maud) Montgomery

The Alpine summits lie white and ghastly in the spring sunshine, and it seems to pour ineffectual beams on their piled cold; but by slow degrees it is silently loosening the bands of the snow, and after a while a goat's step, as it passes along a rocky ledge, or a breath of wind will move a tiny particle, and in an instant its motion spreads over a mile of mountain side, and the avalanche is rushing swifter and mightier at every foot down to the valley below, where it will all turn into sweet water, and ripple glancing in the sunshine.
— from Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chapters I to XIV by Alexander Maclaren

“Why, aunt, you don’t mean to go so soon?” cried Mrs. Snow, with a reproachful glance at the rebellious Polly.
— from Proverb Stories by Louisa May Alcott

What he caught in Marion's look, as she turned it full upon him, nobody could see; but there was a quieter earnest in it, certainly, when she turned back; and the young man had responded to her salutation with a relaxing glance of friendly pleasantness that seemed more native to his face than the frown of a few minutes before.
— from The Other Girls by A. D. T. (Adeline Dutton Train) Whitney

Next was another tent with a sign, "J. C. Summers, Wholesale and Retail Grocer," and next to that a wooden building whose sign proclaimed that it belonged to Caldwell and Hunter, dry-goods merchants.
— from We Were There at the Oklahoma Land Run by Jim Kjelgaard

It had been a monastery, and was an old, yellow-washed structure facing the street, with a rambling garden surrounded by high walls, clinging to it in the rear.
— from An American Girl Abroad by Adeline Trafton

For her size she was a remarkably good sailer.
— from The Story of John Paul Jones by Chelsea Curtis Fraser

One is that she was a remarkably good woman.
— from The Friendly Club and Other Portraits by Francis Parsons

Here she was a real guest—here her great life was beginning!
— from Children of the Whirlwind by Leroy Scott

Byron accepted the gift, without attempting to explain, and a few days afterwards sent his servant with a return gift: a brace of pistols, a fowling piece, a fishing net, and some silk to make a gown for the fisherman’s wife.
— from The Love Affairs of Lord Byron by Francis Henry Gribble

He was, as you may have heard, a very heartless man; but I happen to know that he was reasonably fond of his second wife, and reasonably grieved at her death.
— from My Lord Duke by E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung