“What happened to your face?" Harriet asked."It was a misunderstanding," Daniel said smoothly, wondering how long it might take for his bruises to heal. He did not think he was particularly vain, but the questions were growing tiresome."A misunderstanding?" Elizabeth echoed. "With an anvil?""Oh, stop," Harriet admonished her. "I think he looks very dashing." "As if he dashed into an anvil.""Pay no attention," Harriet said to him. "She lacks imagination.”

“A misunderstanding?" Elizabeth echoed. "With an anvil?""Oh, stop," Harriet admonished her. "I think he looks very dashing.""As if he dashed into an anvil.”

“Help me. Please?”She gave him an abashed nod (but not nearly soabashed as she ought) and turned to Harriet. “I think that Lord Winstead refers to the rhyming qualities of the title.” Harriet blinked a few times. “It doesn’t rhyme.”“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Elizabeth burst out. “ Finstead Winstead?”Harriet’s gasp very nearly sucked the air from the room. “I never noticed!” she exclaimed.“Obviously,” her sister drawled.“I must have been thinking about you when I wrotethe play,” Harriet said to Daniel. From her expression, he gathered he was meant to feel flattered, so he tried to smile.”

“Miss Wynter, I think you should be the evil queen,” Harriet said.“There’s an evil queen?” Daniel echoed. With obvious delight.“Of course,” Harriet replied. “Every good play has an evil queen.”Frances actually raised her hand. “And a un—”“Don’t say it,” Elizabeth growled.Frances crossed her eyes, put her knife to her forehead in an approximation of a horn, and neighed.”

“Harriet was silent, thinking, and then she said, "It is too hard to be a person. You don't only have to go on and on. You have to be--" she looked for the word she needed and could not find it. Then, "You have to be tall as well," said Harriet.”

“Besides," he said breezily, "were it not for misunderstandings, we would be sadly lacking in great literature."She looked at him questioningly."Where would Romeo and Juliet be?""Alive.”