Girls," their mother interjected, "you must both stop being strange - it is unattractive. And don't forget your hats. It would be absolutely the end for me if you two came down with freckles at a time like this.

Though her emotions had not deviated from a jittery frailty she knew that in her own room she could at least attempt sleep and that if she dreamed she might then finally be with Henry.

Among her other talents were forgetting what she did not like and ignoring what she preferred not to see.

Heart-stopping envy is the sincerest form of flattery.

We see our sins reflected everywhere: in the pallor of our intimates’ faces, in the scratching of tree branches against windows, in the strange movements of everyday objects. These may be messages from God or tricks of the eye, but in neither case are we permitted to ignore them.

Henry shook his head, 'I was drunk,' he said, trying to sound both ashamed and firm in this belief. He remembered the rosebush incident very clearly, of course, but he knew that sneaking into the bedroom window of his fiancee's little sister wasn't something he wanted to explain to his father. Sometimes, Henry reflected, being taken for a perpetual drunk was sort of convenient.

Already she could feel the stunning weight of a lifetime of regret for letting him go, and she knew that it was enought to bury her alive.