Protocol required that James sit on Kate’s right, but she had been able to seat the eldest of the Charnwood sisters alongside him. Marianne was a lively young woman of twenty-three years, with rosy cheeks and brown ringlets, who met every one of James’s requirements, even the new ones pertaining to figure. She also had the ability to talk, quite cheerfully, for hours.
Kate listened with one ear while Marianne began her conversation with James by mentioning the recent, clement weather. This was followed by an account of a rather muddy picnic she had attended the previous week, a balloon ascension she’d witnessed the summer before last, and a visit to York when she was ten. She then described the most recent book she’d read and launched into a discussion of Greek tragedies that became tangl
