"Penelope, what IS that noxious odor?"

[Laura Louise Hile]

"And why do you suppose that odious little man is staring at you?"

[Elizabeth Elliot]

And where, might I ask, did you unearth such an inaccurate representation of my person??

This photograph is perfectly dreadful. Oh, Penelope Clay looks well enough, for her. She was never pretty, even in her youth. But I in no way resemble the woman in mustard yellow. As if I would wear such a color! And that hat! It is unspeakably ugly.

Must I remind you of Jane's description?

It sometimes happens, that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was ten years before; and, generally speaking, if there has been neither ill health nor anxiety, it is a time of life at which scarcely any charm is lost. It was so with Elizabeth ...

Setting the record straight ...

Elizabeth Elliot