And so they played some of the world's loveliest piano music - the exiled homesick girl, the humiliated, tired old man. Not properly. Better than that.

She's like snow in Russian," said Anna. "Snow in the evening when the sun sets and it looks like Alpengluhen, you know? And if snow had a scent it would smell like that [the rose].

Not a frog, I hope?” he asked…She shook her head. “No. And if it was I wouldn’t kiss it, I promise you. I might kiss a prince if I could be sure he’d turn into a frog, but not the other way around.

They were steaming out of the station before Maia asked, 'Was it books in the trunk?' 'It was books, admitted Miss Minton. And Maia said, 'Good.

It was a heavenly summer, the summer in which France fell and the British Expeditionary Force was evacuated from Dunkirk. Leaves were never such an intense and iridescent green; sunlight glinted on flower-studded meadows as the Germans encircled the Maginot Line and overran not only France but Belgium and Holland. Birdsong filled the air in the lull between bursts of gunfire and accompanied the fleeing refugees who blocked the roads. It was as though the weather was preparing a glorious requiem for the death of Europe.

Loneliness had taught Harriet that there was always someone who understood - it was just so often that they were dead, and in a book.

The sisters worked from dawn to dusk. One of them was an idiot; she started shaving her legs and marrying tax inspectors, so she was no good.