I thought you wanted food," she gasped. "I do," he murmured, tugging on the bodice of her dress. "But I want you more.

Mother,” Hyacinth said with a great show of solicitude, “you know I love you dearly—” “Why is it,” Violet pondered, “that I have come to expect nothing good when I hear a sentence beginning in that manner?

A man with charm is an entertaining thing, and a man with looks is, ofcourse, a sight to behold, but a man with honor - ah, he is the one, dear reader, to which young ladies should flock.

And what renders him so unmarriageable?” Eloise asked. Francesca leveled a serious stare at her older sister. Eloise was mad if she thought she should set her cap for Michael. “Well?” Eloise prodded. “He could never remain faithful to one woman,” Fran-cesca said, “and I doubt you‟d be willing to put up with infidelities.” “No,” Eloise murmured, “not unless he‟d be willing to put up with severe bodily injury.

If one didn't have love, was it better, then, to be alone?

Watch over Honoria, will you? See that she doesn’t marry an idiot.

It was funny, he reflected later, how one’s life could alter in an instant, how one minute everything could be a certain way, and the next it’s simply ... not