Mark Twain

THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER BY MARK TWAIN (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)

the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not service

The air was utterly dead. There was not a breath stirring. It was the sleepiest of sleepy days. The drowsing murmur of the five and twenty studying scholars soothed the soul like the spell that is in the murmur of bees. Away off in the flaming sunshine, Cardiff Hill lifted its soft green sides through a shimmering veil of heat, tinted with the purple of distance; a few birds floated on lazy wing high in the air; no other living thing was visible but some cows, and they were asleep.

Like many other simple–hearted souls, it was her pet vanity to believe she was endowed with a talent for dark and mysterious diplomacy, and she loved to contemplate her most transparent devices as marvels of low cunning.

perplexed

He worshipped this new angel with furtive eye,

"Tom, you didn't have to undo your shirt collar where I sewed it, to pump on your head, did you? Unbutton your jacket!"

So he forestalled what might be the next move:

The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the room; then she put them up and looked out under them.

She seldom or never looked THROUGH them for so small a thing as a boy; they were her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not service—she could have seen through a pair of stove–lids just as well.