“According to the three missed calls from her mother—who thought Madison had been kidnapped in the big, bad city and was now being held for an ungodly sum of money—the four text messages from her brother wondering if she knew how to navigate the beltway—because apparently little sisters couldn’t drive—and the voice mail from her father warning there was a problem with the reservations, she was late for brunch.”

“We knew that Cecilia had killed herself because she was a misfit, because the beyond called to her, and we knew that her sisters, once abandoned, felt her calling from that place, too. ”

“She became aware that she had thought the less of him because he had thought the more of her. She had worshipped this other man because he had assumed superiority and had told her that he was big enough to be her master. But now, -- now that it was all too late, -- the veil had fallen from her eyes. She could now see the difference between manliness and 'deportment.”

“She was the youngest of the two daughters of a most affectionate, indulgent father; and had, in consequence of her sister's marriage, been mistress of his house from a very early period. Her mother had died too long ago for her to have more than an indistinct remembrance of her caresses; and her place had been supplied by an excellent woman as governess, who had fallen little short of a mother in affection.”

“She scarcely knew what to think except that she was in the presence of a woman who was as close to legendary as any being could get.What stories were told of her! That she had been sequestered in her own manor to prevent men from fighting over her, that she possessed strange powers, that the Wolf had kidnapped her for vengeance but married her for love, that her own brother, mistaking what had happened, had returned her to England by stealth and that Norse and Saxon had come perilously close to war over her.”

“Betsy liked to talk. Her father always said she got it from her mother, and her mother always said she got it from her father. But whomever she got it from she was certainly a talker.”