What’s that?” she asked the girl, wrinkling her nose. “Oh, that? That’s just Pillover.” “And what’s a pillover, when it’s at home?” “My little brother.” “Ah, I commiserate. I have several of my own. Dashed inconvenient, brothers.

No, Lord Maccon was riproaring, tumble down, without a doubt, pickled beyond the gherkin.

She would have colored gracefully with embarrassment had she not possessed the complexion of one of those “heathen Italians,” as her mother said, who never colored, gracefully or otherwise. (Convincing her mother that Christianity had, to all intents and purposes, originated with the Italians, thus making them the exact opposite of heathen, was a waste of time and breath.)

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

Floote, what is going on? Do they think I am contagious? Should I assure them I was born with a nose this size?

A man was attacking me with a wet handkerchief.

His eyes were jet-colored circles of perpetual disapproval.