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.

The living are made of nothing but flaws. The dead, with each passing day in the afterlife, become more and more impeccable to those who remain earthbound.

It is easy to forget now, how effervescent and free we all felt that summer.

THE LUXE IS . . . Pretty girls in pretty dresses, partying until dawn. Irresistible boys with mischievous smiles and dangerous intentions. White lies, dark secrets, and scandalous hookups. This is Manhattan in 1899.

Even when a girl is married she still never completely leaves her mother and father's home.

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.

She was like a heroine in a novel that she herself was writing the character kept protesting that she was too strong for love and yet the narrator went on describing her desire.