[quote]"I've had a revelation, Edyth," she says, looking down at her book and pretending to recite. "You've basically got three categories of people here: I call them the Pious, the Privileged and the Pitiful."

"So how can you tell who's who?"

"Oh, you can spot the Privileged easily. They're just like whatever priggish girl you knew back home, always judging you but always changing the rules. And the Pious, they keep to themselves, like Mary over there." She points to a girl daintily turning the pages of her [I]Rule[/I] with her pinky up. "As for the Pitiful, well, you'd never guess, but Beatrice there, they say she's got a baby back home by a baron. He gave a big donation to put her away here. Poor thing."

"Lord, that's awful." I cringe.

"They're the unmarriagable daughters, the ones no one else wants."

"I guess I'm kind of in the Pitiful category myself."

"Oh, come on," she chides. "Give yourself a chance."

I shrug it off. "What about you?"

"Let's do our recitation," she dodges with a wink.[/quote]


[color=silver][indent][indent]— Vesper Stamper, [I]A Cloud of Outrageous Blue[/i][/indent][/indent][/color]