People will buy anything at jumble sales,' I said. 'At the Evacuated Children Charity Fair a woman bought a tree branch that had fallen on the table.

It is not an easy thing to put on a wet sock.

Perhaps that's how I should think of them, Polly thought, the troupe and Miss Snelgrove and Trot. And Sir Godfrey. Not as lost to her, but as removed to this moment in time for safekeeping.

Finch picked up one of the ancient fax-mags and brought it over to me. "I don't need anything to read," I said. "I'll just sit here and eavesdrop along with you." "I thought you might sit on the mag," he said. "It's extremely difficult to get soot out of chintz.

And kissed her for a hundred and sixty-nine years.

The entire range of human experience is present in a church choir, including, but not restricted to jealousy, revenge, horror, pride, incompetence (the tenors have never been on the right note in the entire history of church choirs, and the basses have never been on the right page), wrath, lust and existential despair.

There are some things worth giving up anything for, even your freedom, and getting rid of your period is definitely one of them.