'one bit more or less can make no odds.'

'Then you have not that piece? said Albinia.

'Oh, my dear! Think of that! New Saxony! I begged it of Mr.
Holland. A new remnant--pink list, and all! I said it was just what
I wanted for Master Gilbert. Mr. Holland is always a civil, feeling
man. New Saxony--three shillings the yard--and trimmed with blue
sarsenet! Where is it, Gilbert?'

'In a soup dish, with a crop of mustard and cress on it,' said
Gilbert, with a wicked wink at Albinia, who was unable to resist
joining in the girls' shout of laughing, but she became alarmed when
she found that poor Miss Meadows was very near crying, and that her
incoherency became so lachrymose as to be utterly incomprehensible.

Lucy, ashamed of her laughter, solemnly declared that it was very
wrong of Gilbert, and she hoped he would not suffer from it, and
Albinia, trying to become grave, judicial, and conciliatory,
contrived to pronounce that it was very silly to leave anything off
in an east wind, and hoping to put an end to the matter, asked Aunt
Maria to sit down, and judge how they went on with their lessons.

O no, she could not interrupt. Her mother would want her. She knew
Mrs. Kendal never admitted visitors. She had no doubt she was quite
right. She hoped it would be understood. She would not intrude. In
fact, she could neither go nor stay. She would not resume her seat,
nor let anything go on, and it was full twenty minutes before a
series of little vibrating motions and fragmentary phrases had borne
her out of the house.