" ...] "Thinking of something else " echoed the sister. "She reads, you see, a lot-whenever she gets the chance she reads-" "Reads " echoed the sister. "And then, you see, she gets thinking-" "Thinking Reading doesn't make me think." "With much regret," wrote the matron to Aunt Alice, "I am obliged to dismiss your younger niece, Nurse Twinkler II. She has no vocation for nursing. On the ...]."

Elizabeth von Arnim was a British author and Countess best known for writing semi-autobiographical works that served as satirical commentaries of European society during her time.

Elizabeth von Arnim was a British author and Countess best known for writing semi-autobiographical works that served as satirical commentaries of European society during her time.

" ...] 'The gracious one too must be in need of food, ' evaded Gertrud, who for some reason never would admit sheThe Adventures of Elizabeth in Rugen by Elizabeth von Arnim. wanted feeding. 'Oh she is, ' I sighed; and again we trudged on in silence. It seemed a long while before we reached that edge over which my bandbox had disappeared flashing farewell as it went, and when we did get to it and eagerly looked along the fresh stretch of road in hopes of seeing August miraculously turned back, we gave a simultaneous groan, for it was as deserted as the one we had just ...].""

" ...]married, opened before her on her appearing with such a pretty debutante under her wing, and she could enjoy the reflected glory of Anna's little triumphs. And then, without any apparent reason, Anna had altered so strangely, and had disappointed every one's expectations; never encouraging the right man, never ready to do as she was told, exasperatingly careless on all matters of vital importance, and ending by showing symptoms of freezing into something of the same philosophical state as Peter. Their mother had been German--a lady-in ...].""

On that April afternoon all the wallflowers of the world seemed to her released body to have been piled up at the top of Regent Street so that she should walk in fragrance. She was in this exalted mood, the little mouse-coloured young lady slipping along southwards from Harley Street, because she had just had a tooth out. After weeks of miserable indifference she was quivering with responsiveness again, feeling the relish of life, the tang of it, the jollity of all this bustle and hurrying past of busy people. And the beauty of it, the beauty of it, she thought, fighting a tendency to loiter...

Her Grand Ducal Highness the Princess Priscilla of Lothen-Kunitz was up to the age of twenty-one a most promising young lady. She was not only poetic in appearance beyond the habit of princesses but she was also of graceful and appropriate behaviour. She did what she was told; or, more valuable, she did what was expected of her without being told. Her father, in his youth and middle age a fiery man, now an irritable old gentleman who liked good food and insisted on strictest etiquette, was proud of her on those occasions when she happened to cross his mind. Her mother, by birth an English...

May 2nd.-Last night after dinner, when we were in the garden, I said, "I want to be alone for a whole summer, and get to the very dregs of life. I want to be as idle as I can, so that my soul may have time to grow. Nobody shall be invited to stay with me, and if any one calls they will be told that I am out, or away, or sick. I shall spend the months in the garden, and on the plain, and in the forests. I shall watch the things that happen in my garden, and see where I have made mistakes. On wet days I will go into the thickest parts of the forests, where the pine needles are everlastingly...

When the doctor had gone, and the two women from the village he had been waiting for were upstairs shut in with her dead father, Lucy went out into the garden and stood leaning on the gate staring at the sea. Her father had died at nine o'clock that morning, and it was now twelve. The sun beat on her bare head; and the burnt-up grass along the top of the cliff, and the dusty road that passed the gate, and the glittering sea, and the few white clouds hanging in the sky, all blazed and glared in an extremity of silent, motionless heat and light. Into this emptiness Lucy stared, motionless...