“It was not a very prepossessing accessory for all it's serviceability, being both outlandish in design and indifferent in shape. It was a drab slate gray color, with cream ruffle trim, and it had a shaft in the new ancient-Egyptian style that looked rather like an elongated pineapple. Despite it's many advanced attributes, Lady Maccon's most common application of the parasol was through brute force enacted directly upon the cranium of an opponent. It was a crude and perhaps undignified modus operandi to be certain but it had worked so well for her in the past that she was loathe to rely too heavily on any of the newfangled aspects of her parasol's character. ”

“She took a moment to lament her lack of parasol. Every time she left the house, she felt keenly the absence of her heretofore ubiquitous accessory.”

“Lady Maccon.” “By George, Boots! How the deuce can you possibly tell that there is Lady Maccon?” queried the other top-hated gentleman. “Who else would be standing in the middle of a street on full-moon night with a raging ruddy fire behind her, waving a parasol about?” “Good point, good point.”

“By normal standards, Jesus' modus operandi was virtually an atheistic modus operandi, so that he could live through the irony of atheism, first divesting himself of a standard theism, then undergoing an ironic reversal toward a new theism.”

“Lady Maccon stopped suddenly. Her husband got four long strides ahead before he realized she had paused. She was starring thoughtfully up into the aether, twirling the deadly parasol about her head."I have just remembered something," Alexia said when he returned to her side."Oh, that explains everything. How foolish of me to think you could walk and remember at the same time.”

“Her heart had been through the shredder too many times to count, and she still had a small bit of hope left in her. She didn't like to admit. She certainly didn't like to think about it. But Jack had been her everything. Even after all the terrible things that had happened between them, she still couldn't look past the tiny piece of hope she'd kept locked away.”