I saw that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. I automatically liked her and despised her and felt sorry for her and was glad.

My dear Rachel,” she answered. “Bristol may be a bit of a backwater but I daresay it can just about stand the shock of scarlet nail polish.

A charmed life that carried a curse? Or a cursed life that carried a charm?

My dear Rachel," she answered. "Bristol may be a bit of a backwater but I daresay it can just about stand the shock of scarlet nail polish.

I saw that she wasn't wearing a wedding ring. I automatically liked her and despised her and felt sorry for her and was glad.

So I stayed with my mother. And she and I experienced a mainly joyless and destructive relationship of hopeless interdependence.

And at the same time I was careful not to step on any of the cracks. "Bears," I exclaimed merrily — being practically impossible to hoodwink and simultaneously doing one of my nifty little dances, nifty and artistic, "bears, look at me walking in just the squares!" I believe that on the second occasion somebody actually heard me — yes, and saw me, too! Oh, Lordy Moses!

I felt mischievous, clever, triumphant, sad—though perhaps the dominant emotion was really this last. I felt like a mildly melancholic Mrs Machiavelli, already ashamed of her duplicity.

There are things that money can't buy, things like fresh youth to replace the one you've hardly been aware of, things like lost opportunities which might conceivably have led to nothing, but which on the other hand might have led to fulfillment and serenity and new lives and passionate involvement. (Along, of course, with disinheritance!) And human nature being what it is this is the version you'll unquestionably believe.