How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
Mrs. Beale was again amused. "Why you're just the person! It must be quite the sort of thing you've heard at your awful mother's. Have you never seen women there crying to her to 'spare' the men they love?"
Maisie, wondering, tried to remember; but Sir Claude was freshly diverted. "Oh they don't trouble about Ida! Mrs. Wix cried to you to spare me?" (XIV.22)
Mrs. Wix is working overtime to preserve the sanctity of the family unit; Mrs. Beale and Sir Claude frankly don't care. This is one of our first hints that Mrs. Beale and Sir Claude are up to no good—they insult Maisie's birth mother to Maisie's face and make fun of the idea of fidelity. This, by Victorian standards, ain't cool at all.
Quote #8
"What's more unusual than for any one to be given up, like you, by her parents?" (XXX.71)
Sir Claude asks Maisie this question, which sums up the poor girl's predicament and really drives home the idea that there's an absence where Maisie's family should be. This makes times tough, as we've seen, but in another sense, it's a positive since it means that Maisie is free to choose a family of her own eventually.