“He was enmeshed in his grief. He did not notice that Graceless's leg had come off and that she was managing as best she could with three.”

“He was, she reflected, almost rudely like a tortoise; and she was glad her friend kept none as pets or they might have suspected mockery.”

“She liked Victorian novels. They were the only kind of novel you could read while eating an apple.”

“Surely she had endured enough for one evening without having to listen to intelligent conversation?”

“But she had a lively acquaintaince with confinement through the works of women novelists, especially those of the unmarried ones.”

“No one had seen anything of Urk since he had gone galloping out into the night carrying Meriam, the hired girl. It was generally assumed that he had drowned her and then himself. Who cared, anyway?”

“On the whole, Flora liked it better when they were silent, though it did rather give her the feeling that she was acting in one of the less cheerful German highbrow films.”