“Father, R.I.P., Sums Me Up at Twenty-ThreeShe has no head for politics,craves good jewelry, trusts too readily,marries too early. Thenone by one she sends away her friendsand stands apart, smug sapphire,her answer to everything a slenderzero, a silent shrug--and every daystill hears me say she'll never be pretty.Instead she reads novels, instead her beltmatches her shoes. She is masterof the condolence letter, and knowshow to please a man with her mouth:Good. Nose too large, eyes too closely set,hair not glorious blonde, not her mother's red,nor the glossy black her younger sister has,the little raven I loved best.”

“The difficulty will be to keep her from learning too fast and too much. She is always sitting with her little nose burrowing into books. She doesn't read them, Miss Minchin; she gobbles them up as if she were a little wolf instead of a little girl. She is always starving for new books to gobble, and she wants grown-up books--great, big, fat ones--French and German as well as English--history and biography and poets, and all sorts of things. Drag her away from her books when she reads too much.”

“Little Lotte thought of everything and nothing. Her hair was as golden as the sun's rays, and her soul as clear and blue as her eyes. She wheedled her mother, was kind to her doll, took great care of her frock and her red shoes and her fiddle, but loved most of all, when she went to sleep, to hear the Angel of Music.”

“Her head titled to the side and her eyebrows crept up her face. It was her uh-durrr face, she was just too kind to actually say it to me.”

“She went of her own accord,' answered the master; 'she has a right to go if she please. Trouble me no more about her. Hereafter she is only me sister in name: not because I disown her, but because she has disowned me.”

“Mimoo shook her head. “Too sleepy for her maybe, but ideal for her mother, who worries too much. I don’t need excitement in my life. I’ve had enough of it, thank you.” She shrugged. “Gia will be fine. She’ll be fine anywhere.”“Gia?”“It’s Gia when I love her,” said Mimoo. “My husband never called her anything but that. Me, I love her, but she drives me crazy. So headstrong. To call her stubborn like a mule is an injustice to mules. The mules are St. Francis compared to her.”Harry laughed.”