The ill-informed masses included her own family among their ranks, a family that specialized in being both inconvenient and asinine.

Acknowledgements With grateful thanks to the three least-appreciated and hardest-working proselytizers of the written word: independent bookstores, librarians, and teachers.

Spin the parasol three times and repeat after me: I shield in the name of fashion. I accessorize for one and all. Pursuit of truth is my passion. This I vow by the great parasol.

The Pantechnicon stored and distributed a good deal of furniture as well. The very idea of a lady of good breeding visiting such a place. There would be tables lying about, on their sides, naked! Not to mention flaccid dirigibles! Alexia shuddered at the very idea.

Really, Sophronia, it makes me most uncomfortable how you manage to sort everything out every time I faint.

I am entirely capable." "Of what, waddling up to someone and ruthlessly bumping into them?

Really, Alexia, what could have possessed you to attach yourself to the side of the ship in such a juvenile fashion? It is positively barnacle-like.