“Meet me in the courtyard in half an hour, then,” said Will. “I’ll wake Cyril. And be prepared to swoon at my finery.”

“I get no sense from his note at all,” said Will, bounding to his feet, “except that he can quote Tennyson’s lesser poetry. Sophie, how quickly canyou have Tessa ready?”“Half an hour,” said Sophie, not looking up from the dress.“Meet me in the courtyard in half an hour, then,” said Will. “I’ll wake Cyril. And be prepared to swoon at my finery.”

“My beloved Laura” (said she to me a few Hours before she died) “take warning from my unhappy End …Beware of fainting-fits…Beware of swoons, Run mad as often as you chuse; but do not faint—”.”

“Thanksgiving dinners take eighteen hours to prepare. They are consumed in twelve minutes. Half-times take twelve minutes. This is not coincidence.”

“If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if fifteen minutes, three days; if half an hour, two days; if an hour, I am ready now.”

“In half hour my mother has managed to give me what my father couldn't: my past.”