'Yes, Mr Dean. I have stayed for him, your reverence. He has been took a little poorly.'
'Say "taken", Tope - to the dean,' The younger rook interposes in a low tone with his touch of correction, as who should say: 'You may offer bad grammar to the laity, or the humle clergy, not to the dean.'

«Are you reading?» «Reading?» repeats Edwin Drood with a touch of contempt. «No. Doing, working, engineering.»

Now, the old lady was exceedingly proud of her bright eyes being so clear that she could read writing without spectacles. Her son was also so proud of the circumstance, and so dutifully bent on her deriving the utmost possible gratification from it, that he had invented the pretence that he himself could NOT read writing without spectacles. Therefore he now assumed a pair, of grave and prodigious proportions, which not only seriously inconvenienced his nose and his breakfast, but seriously impeded his perusal of the letter. For, he had the eyes of a microscope and a telescope combined, when they were unassisted.

What is prettier than an old lady - except a young lady - when her eyes are bright, when her figure is trim and compact, when her face is cheerful and calm, and when her dress is as the dress of a china spephardness: so dainty in its colours, so individually assorted to herself, so neatly moulded on her?