jane-austen

I saw that he was looking anxious.'I thought you weren't coming.' As he spoke, he grasped my hand. And if the sight of him had not quite restored the magic, the touch of him most certainly did. 'You're not wishing yourself some place else, Mary?

Your powers of observation are formidable," Michael says and Darien giggles behind one perfectly manicured hand, like some sort of preppie geisha.

I will probably die a misunderstood virgin like Ophelia in HAMLET, only I won't do it by floating down a stream, singing my own mad song. They'll just find me here, on my bed, on a weekend night, my dead body slumped over a homework assignment.Hopefully they'll discover me before Teeny eats my remains.

I suppose I look acceptable, the black (haired) sheep among the Barrett blondes.

He shakes his head and his mouth is quirked at one corner. I can't tell if he thinks I am sort of amusing or truly pathetic. It's especially hard to tell because we are both looking resolutely at the teacher so she can't accuse us of not paying attention. We talk out of the sides of our mouths, like gangsters in those old movies my dad likes to watch.

When I first met him (Michael) at the beginning of the year and found out that I would have to be his lab partner in bio and the year-long series of projects in AP English, I seriously considered taking night school classes and getting a GED just to avoid him.

When the evening was over, Anne could not but be amused at the idea of her coming to Lyme, to preach patience and resignation to a young man whom she had never seen before; nor could she help fearing, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.

Anne did think on the question with perfect decision, and said as much in replay as her own feelings could accomplish, or as his seemed able to bear, for he was too much affected to renew the subject - and when he spoke again, it was something totally different.

Whenever you are transplanted, like me, you will understand how very delightful it is to meet with anything at all like what one has left behind.

But look behind you, Mary.' She nodded towards the dais. 'One of the musicians seems to be trying to attract your attention.'It was Peter. He was standing on the dais smiling across at me. My delight at seeing him was such that I could not disguise it - did not try to disguise it.

[Jane] Austen was not a novelist for nothing: she knew that our stories are what make us human, and that listening to someone else's stories -- entering into their feelings, validating their experiences -- is the highest way of acknowledging their humanity, the sweetest form of usefulness.

All the privilege I claim for my own sex, is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone.

It was gratitude; gratitude, not merelyfor having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him.

What on earth did you say to Isola? She stopped in on her way to pick up Pride and Prejudice and to berate me for never telling her about Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. Why hadn't she known there were better love stories around? Stories not riddled with ill-adjusted men, anguish, death and graveyards!

They danced again, and when the assembly closed, parted, on the lady__ side at least, with a strong inclination for continuing the acquaintance. Whether she thought of him so much while she drank her warm wine and water and prepared herself for bed as to dream of him when there, cannot be ascertained; but I hope it was no more than in a light slumber, or a morning doze at most, for if it be true, as a celebrated writer has maintained, that no young lady can be justified in falling in love before the gentleman__ love is declared, it must be very improper that a young lady should dream of a gentlemen before the gentleman is first known to have dreamed of her.

I did not have an opportunity to speak privately with Peter until just as he was leaving, when he handed me one of the Burns song-sheets and (with a most earnest look) told me to read it before I went to bed.The song was 'My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose,' but it was not until was up in my bedchamber that I saw he had written on the inside page: 'My mother would be honoured if you visited her after church tomorrow.

You may marry Miss Grey for her fifteen pounds but you will always be my Willoughby. My nightmare. My sorrow. My past. My mistake. My regret. My love.

Right, I totally forgot. I can__ wait to taste the flummery._____ not sure if I want to know what that is,_ Manning said.__t__ a sort of jelly, but made into a mold that is shaped like a castle or a tower or just a___ebbie Mae wiggled one hand___ig wobbly thing. The ragout of veal will be a hit, I__ sure. And the Roman punch will have to be changed a little bit. It__ usually lemon water and hot syrup with a lot of rum.