Ivy yearned to be grown up. When you were a child, you did what they wanted. Willy-nilly. Helter-skelter. Pell and mell. You were hocussed and pocussed from one place to another with no say about it at all. You could have friends where you were, like the school you were going to, the apartment you lived in where you and your sister had a bedroom together and Francis one of his own. You could lose all that when they decided you would.

William Sharp had the fleeting part of Zulim, and Ah Young Hong showed a lovely voice with round, soft low notes and a sugar-sweet top as a nymph and a sylphide.

[S]he owned the motor car, a vehicle adapted to her own requirement; it had a horn which could be worked from the back seat; her weekly journey to church resounded through the village like the Coming of the Lord.

In January 1934, when Ma Chung-ying's troops laid siege to Tihua (Urumchi), Soviet Russia sent Red Army units into Sinkiang to help Sheng against Ma.