Oh yes. Draw your hem back from my mud, little sister.

And – I think you know, don’t you? – that I love you, Anne.’ I feel as if I have been living in a loveless world for too long. The last tender face I saw was my father’s when he sailed for England. ‘You do? Truly?’ ‘I do.’ He rises to his feet and pulls me up to stand beside him. My chin comes to his shoulder, we are both dainty, long-limbed, coltish: well-matched. I turn my face into his jacket. ‘Will you marry me?’ he whispers. ‘Yes,’ I say.

He promised her that he would give her everything, everything she wanted, as men in love always do. And she trusted him despite herself, as women in love always do.

In Spain," indeed! He would have got no closer than the Indies if I had not showed him how to do it. Stupid puppy.

Stars in the night,' he said. 'Something something something something, some delight

I have learned the power of surviving.

Anyone can attract a man. The trick is to keep him.