“I don’t want to speak of them here,” replied Bella, suppressing indignation, and tapping her foot on the floor. “They are much too kind and too good to be drawn into these discussions.”

“Why put it so?” demanded Mrs. Wilfer, with biting sarcasm. “Why adopt a circuitous form of speech? It is polite and it is obliging; but why do it? Why not openly say that they are much too kind and too good for us ? We understand the allusion. Why disguise the phrase?”

“Ma,” said Bella, with one beat of her foot, “you are enough to drive a saint mad, and so is Lavvy.”