“Welcome to finishing school, Gemma. Learn to embroider, serve tea, curtsy. Oh, and by the way, you might be demolished in the night by a hideous winged creature from the roof.”

“Beauty, grace, and charm my foot. It's a school for sadists with good tea-serving skills.”

“Gemma~Was he really looking at me that way?Kartik~What way? Gemma~Like a piece of ripe fruit?Katrik~You'd best be on your guard with him.”

“It's just a little initiation we have here at Spence - we like to torture each other. Beauty, grace, and charm my foot. It's a school for sadists with good tea-serving skills.”

“I know. And I'm Sorry. People will disappoint you, Gemma. The question to ask is whether you can learn to live with the disappointment and move on. I'm offering you a new world.”

“Gemma, you see how it is. They've planned our entire lives, from what we shall wear to whom we shall marry and where we shall live. It's one lump of sugar in your tea whether you like it or not and you'd best smile even if you're dying deep inside. We're like pretty horses, and just as on horses, they mean to put blinders on us so we can't look left or right but only straight ahead where they would lead. Please, please, please, Gemma, let's not die inside before we have to.”

“Miss Temple, perhaps you will demonstrate the proper curtsy for us?"Without ado, Cecily temple, She Who Can Do No Wrong, settles to the floor in a long, slow, graceful arc that seems to defy gravity. It is a thing of beauty. I am hideously jealous."Thank you, Miss Temple."Yes. Thank you, you little demon beast. May you marry a man who eats garlic with every meal.”