Both of us were quiet with the recognition that something was ending, and something was beginning.

Recently Mr. Mawdsley’s donkey escaped from his stall, raced down the road, and somehow found his way into an enclosed pasture. Mr. Caird’s prized mare was innocently grazing when the ill-bred seducer had his way with her. Now it appears the mare has conceived, and a feud is raging between Caird, who demands financial compensation, and Mawdsley, who insists that had the pasture fencing been in better repair, the clandestine meeting would never have occurred. Worse still, it has been suggested that the mare is a shameless lightskirt and did not try nearly hard enough to preserve her virtue.

Beatrix, do you know what happens to girls who ask such naughty questions?” “They’re ravished in haylofts?” she inquired hopefully.

The span of three or four minutes is pretty insignificant in the scheme of things. People lose hundreds of minutes everyday, squandering them on trivial things. But sometimes in those fragments of time, something can happen you'll remember the rest of your life.

She was yours, if you'd truly wanted her," Harry continued, a pitiless smile touching his lips. "But I wanted her more.

I grew up being very shy, very much a bookworm, and I remember desperately wondering how to be accepted by the popular kids.

You wouldn't have taken Rose to such a place, would you?" "Of course not, but she is a little girl, and I'm-" "My life", he interrupted quietly. "You're my entire life. If anything ever happens to you, Holly, there is nothing left for me.