To reach the lower branches of the blackwood one had to swing Tarzan-like across a narrow gully choked with gorse and blackberries. […] [T]he challenge of the rope swing was definitely more in James' line. […] Even if he slipped and failed, or worse, chickened, they would be unlikely to judge too harshly.

She had pewter-coloured hair set in a ruthless permanent, a hard beak and large moist eyes with the sympathetic expression of wet stones.

I went to the restroom to give birth to a food baby...

If it be true that history repeats itself, then assuredly a narrative of domestic trials, of political emergencies, and of religious animosities can never be out of date, since men and women still bear in their hearts, passions as vindictive, a patriotism as ardent, and, let us hope, a piety as sincere as distinguished, in the sixteenth century, Philip and Charlotte du Plessis de Mornay.