sentences:  The phrase was first used by Pym in her early unpublished novel "Civil to Strangers" and is taken from Jane Austen's novel "Sanditon" .The book details the everyday life of its narrator, Mildred Lathbury, a spinster in her thirties in 1950s Britain.Perpetually self-deprecating, but with the sharpest wit, Mildred is a part-time voluntary worker who occupies herself by attending and helping at the local church.