- Roger Hamley: Mr. Preston, perhaps you should remember the deference you should show to a man of my father's age and position. Good day to you!
- Squire Hamley: [to Mr. Gibson] "Your wife and I didn't hit it off the only time I ever saw her. I'm not saying she was very silly, but one of us was very silly, and it wasn't me."
- Lady Cumnor: Weally Hawiet, I cannot understand why you take such an intewest in these petty Hollingford affairs.
- Lady Harriet Cumnor: Oh mama, it's only tit for tat. They take the keenest interest in ours.
- Lady Cumnor: Now Claire, when I think a thing I say it out loud. I don't beat about the bush. You have spoiled that girl of yours until she does not know her own mind. She has behaved abominably to Mr Pweston and it is all due to the faults in her education. You have much to answer for.
- Claire Gibson: Cynthia... and Mr Preston?
- Lady Cumnor: Claire! Do you mean to tell me you don't know. Your daughter has been engaged to Mr Pweston for some time. Years I believe. And has now decided to break it off. To be a "jilting jessie" as we used to call it.
- Lady Harriet Cumnor: Mr Preston did not want it spoken of.
- Lady Cumnor: She has used the Gibson girl as a cat's paw and made her and herself the butt of all the gossip in Hollingford.
- Mr. Gibson: Is this true Cynthia?
- Cynthia Kirkpatrick: Molly knows it all.
- Mr. Gibson: Yes, I know that and that she has had to endure gossip and slander for your sake. But more she refused to tell me.
- Cynthia Kirkpatrick: Oh, she told you that much did she?
- Molly Gibson: I couldn't help it.
- Cynthia Kirkpatrick: Why did you have to say anything at all?
- Mr. Gibson: Because her reputation was attacked for your misconduct and I demanded an explanation.
- Lord Cumnor: How much is twice eighteen? Thirty?
- Lady Cumnor: Thirty six.
- Lord Cumnor: Ah! So, Molly Gibson is to marry Mr Preston.
- Lady Cumnor: Is she indeed?
- Lady Harriet Cumnor: Are you sure you've got it right Papa?
- Cynthia Kirkpatrick: The French girls would tell you to believe that you are pretty would make you so.
- Claire Gibson: Don't be angry dear, for a minute there I thought you were going to lose your temper.
- Mr. Gibson: It would have been of no use.
- Roger Hamley: [Roger's letter to Cynthia] It is sundown Cynthia. They are singing outside my tent. The men say it's about a chap who pines for a girl in a distant land. They are teasing me of course - they often do.
- Cynthia Kirkpatrick: And would you reply to him for I shant have time?
- Molly Gibson: And shall I say you'll write as soon as you get to London?
- Cynthia Kirkpatrick: Of course. Well, once I've settled in. Anyway Molly, you'd write him a much better letter than I would.
- Molly Gibson: Cynthia, he wants to hear from you.
- Cynthia Kirkpatrick: Does he? Oh, I suppose he does.
- Claire Gibson: Molly, did you know you were just dancing with the man who keeps Grinstead's bookshop?
- Molly Gibson: Oh, that accounts for him knowing all about the latest books.
- Mr. Gibson: Content yourself my dear. Roger Hamley is as fine as young man as ever breathed, with money or without. I only wish my Molly could meet with such another.
- Claire Gibson: I will try for Molly.
- Mr. Gibson: No, no, no, no, no. That is one thing I forbid. I will have no *trying* for Molly.
- Mrs. Goodenough: Is *that* the duchess? *That* palsy thing? Well! Where are her diamonds? Here am I sitting up and coal and candlelight wasting at home and in comes a duchess wearing a- pfff. Farmer Hodson's daughter's got a dress smarter than that.
- Lady Harriet Cumnor: Here we are at last. Aren't we shamefully late? It was the duchess! That ill-mannered woman kept us all waiting and then appeared à l'enfant as you see her.
- Claire Gibson: Molly, I cannot have you speaking so to Lady Harriet and do stop putting yourself into her conversations.
- Molly Gibson: I can't help it if she asks me questions.
- Claire Gibson: I don't know what you mean by proximate.
- Mr. Gibson: Well go into the surgery and look it up then.
- Miss Browning: Two letters in a week is quite acceptable but at 11 ha'penny postage any more would be extravagant.
- Molly Gibson: Papa, how can you waste one of our precious evenings? We have only six evenings and I reckoned on us doing all sorts of things.
- Mr. Gibson: What sorts of things?
- Molly Gibson: Oh I don't know, everything that's ungenteel and unrefined.
- Mr. Gibson: By toil and labour I've reached the fair height of refinement and I won't be pulled down again.
- Molly Gibson: Oh yes you will for a week.
- Lord Cumnor: I'm sorry I said anything about it now. I'll try to find a more agreeable piece of news.
- [pause]
- Lord Cumnor: Old Marjorie at the lodge is dead.
- Molly Gibson: I don't think you should mention it to Lady Cumnor, Mama.
- Claire Gibson: Molly dear, I know you mean well but don't let one walk into town with Lady Harriet go to your head. I think I'm well capable to decide what I should or shouldn't say to Lady Cumnor.