daughter

He was her father after all. True, a father whose funeral rite she planned to dance at and toast with ale, but her father just the same.

she hated everything her parents loved

There was even a story passed among the queen__ court that when freshly hatched, Rhiannon bit her mother on the neck when she tried to cuddle her new daughter. But Rhiannon didn__ believe that for one second. True, she believed she bit her mother, but she didn__ believe her mother had tried to cuddle her.

She wanted to punch her father in his snout, but she wouldn__. He was her father after all. True, a father whose funeral rite she planned to dance at and toast with ale, but her father just the same.

Ugly and ungainly. The least dependable creature you ever met. Just when you think you understand her, she changes. If only I had a son," he said bitterly.Over and over he disparaged her, and George would have thought that Beatrice would be so used to it, she could not be hurt further. But he saw her neck grow stiffer and stiffer.

A fearful sob suddenly rises in my throat as I think of what it will be like without her, to not have her warm chest to lie against, to not have her kind face to look into, lost in a darkness without a mother to turn to and her here, daughterless.

But Phoebe loved her mother best as she was now, wistful, out-of-step, her laugh tinged always with sadness, as if things were only funny in spite of themselves.

Since Mom wasn't exactly the most useful person in the world, one lesson I learned at an early age was how to get things done, and this was a source of both amazement and concern for Mom, who considered my behavior unladylike but also counted on me. "I never knew a girl to have such gumption," she'd say. "But I'm not too sure it's a good thing.