" Eustacie, finding her tongue, blurted out: ‘But Sarah, do you want to marry Tristram?’
Miss Thane’s eyes twinkled. ‘My love, when a female reaches my advanced years, she cannot be picking and choosing, you know. She must be content with the first respectable offer she receives.’
‘Oh, now I know that you are laughing at me!’ Eustacie said. ‘But I do not understand it. I find it quite extraordinary!’
‘The truth is,’ said Miss Thane confidentially, ‘that I cannot any longer bear his odious way of calling me ma’am. There was no other means of putting an end to it. "

― Georgette Heyer , The Talisman Ring