Ten to one she had in mind some idiot heroine of a book. - George Gissing

If one were as rich as those people! They pass so close to us; they see us, and we see them; but the distance between is infinity. They don’t belong to the same world as we poor wretches. They see everything in a different light; they have powers which would seem supernatural if we were suddenly endowed with them.

You have heard that Nancy wants to mix with the rag-tag and bobtail tomorrow night?’
‘I shall take care of her,’ Horace replied, starting from his reverie.
‘Doesn’t it seem to you rather a come-down for an educated young lady?’
‘Oh, there’ll be lots of them about.’
‘Will there? Then I can’t see much difference between them and the servant girls.

The unhoped was all but granted her. She could labour on in the valley of the shadow of books, for a ray of dazzling sunshine might at any moment strike into its musty gloom.