Sublime

Sibyl—if

Grace Macaulay, then: seventeen, small and plump, with skin that went brown by the end of May. Her hair was black and oily, and had the hot consoling scent of an animal in summer. She disliked books, and was by nature a thief if she found a thing to be beautiful, but not hers. She didn’t know she couldn’t sing. She was inclined to be cross.

Oh C. – if he had only liked my looks – if his tastes had not been so devoutly fixed on Veronica, who in her dreadful prettiness might have been his sister! Still I recall the words of the English queen: that she might well blush to show her face, but of her mind she would never be ashamed – What have I told you of the man I love? You have seen his

Briefly Carleton considered the other man, of whom he’d made such a study he might have been appointed professor of Thomas Studies at the University of Essex. He knew, for example, that Thomas was a confirmed bachelor, as they say, never seen in the company of a beautiful young person or a stately older one; that he had about him the melancholy

dovetailed:

proved himself in all respects a worthy minister at the sacred altar of friendship.’

I discovered her. Charmante, a perfect Gretchen,4 and we’ve already become acquainted. The prettiest little thing, really!’

ruth