Sublime

“Griselda Gowdie,” Grissel replied. “My mam is Janet Gowdie, the banshee of Auldearn, and my granny Isobel was pricked, hanged, and burned while she still lived, many years ago in Nairn.”

Salem trials: Proctor, Jackson, Perkins, Varnum, Green, Skelling, Braybrooke, Wildes, Prince, and Eastey.

She had that rare sense which discerns what is unalterable, and submits to it without murmuring. Adoring her husband’s virtues, she had very early made up her mind to his incapacity of minding his own interests, and had met the consequences cheerfully. She had been magnanimous enough to renounce all pride in teapots or children’s frilling, and had

Viola imposed upon her lover but a short probation. They were married, as was becoming, with great privacy, – almost with secrecy, – in the hope perhaps, as was waggishly remarked at the time, that the late Mrs Lloyd wouldn’t hear of it.

‘No,’ said Rosamond, reflectively; ‘one wonders what such people do, without any prospect. To be sure, there is religion as a support. But,’ she added, dimpling, ‘it is very different with you, Mary. You may have an offer.’

And thus, at sixteen years old, she found herself staring down her first London season with approximately as much joy as one might anticipate a dose of purgative.

“Mark my words, girls. There is no greater enemy of virtue than a charming Welshman.” Feeling Pandora’s elbow poking discreetly against her side, Helen reflected with chagrin that she could vouch for that.

Temperance was a delicate wench.