The Lady Elizabeth

It did not do to give your heart to a man so entirely, she thought. Men did not value what they came by easily. Once you loved, you laid yourself open to pain.

She had already decided that, when she grew up, she was going to do whatever she pleased and not let anyone order her about.

I waste so much time sleeping. And time is of all losses the most irrecuperable, for it can never be redeemed.

I must bear it well as I may. As my sainted mother used to say, we never come to the kingdom of Heaven but by troubles.

But what use was the semblance of power without the substance?

Often, little brother, there is no smoke without fire.

What she loved was being admired, being wanted, being pursued—but she did not think she wanted ever to be caught.

Kat embraced her, concealing her dismay as best she could. For these few months, fraught as they were, Elizabeth had been entirely hers again.

Life was good, and already she understood that to be aware of happiness when you were actually feeling it, and not just in retrospect, was to be happy indeed.

He was not afraid, in fact he was content to go: So much that had been pleasurable in his life was now beyond his capacity, and that he could not bear.

Some of my subjects do not know what is good for them,