Guest Author: Lacy Danes

This week, we're welcoming Lacy Danes, as she celebrates the release of her latest Samhain romance, House of Sin, set in 19th century England. It's available now. Lacey joins us today to discuss her novel and give away a copy! Here's the blurb:

Her most important duty—serve the master’s pleasure.

Emily’s dreams are simple: a life of dedicated service at a respectable estate, and a strong marriage filled with love and devotion for one man. Portage Place, the manor where her parents apprenticed, seems the perfect place to start. Though it is whispered that all is not as it seems behind its grand façade.

The rumors, it turns out, ring with truth. The halls are saturated with sensuality, desire and lust. Despite the scandalous duties she is asked to perform, she is determined not to stumble on what could be her first step toward her dreams. Dreams that, lately, have included the manor’s fiery haired groomsman.

A promise to watch over his younger half-brother brought Adam to Portage Place. For the first time in five years of enjoying the delights of the manor’s unbridled debauchery, Emily’s innocence touches the protector that still lives deep in his core. This house of sin may have ruined him, but he will see to it that it doesn’t ruin her.

It seems, however, that behind every door lurks a conspiracy to bind Emily in velvet chains of desire. Until the only way out is for Adam to take the biggest risk of all…

 

Hello all and thank you for having me at Unusual Historicals. I am Lacy Danes and my new release, House of Sin, is the book I am talking about today.

House Of Sin is a historical erotic romance set in Victorian England. This was my first attempt at writing in this period. However, I have read my share of erotica written from this time.

Not only had I not written a story taking place during the Victorian period before, but I also had not written about a servant. So I had a bunch of research to do. I knew from the beginning of the story that my heroine was from parents who met and fell in love during service. I also knew and that my heroine was forced into work at a house that was scandalous. My heroine is Emily Grey. Her position is at the grand estate Portage Place working under the butler Mr. Waterton.

Some great books that I read to get an idea about servant life were:

The Servants Hall

Not In Front Of The Servants

What the Butler Saw

Upstairs & Downstairs

Each book gave me different information about what it was like to be a servant. For a quick reference on daily routine, Upstairs & Downstairs is amazing. It lists out what a maid’s daily schedule looked like as well as other quick details about what their life was like.

Maids’ schedule:

5:30 am Clean Kitchen Floors

6:00 am Heat Water

6:30 am Wake Seniors, lay and light fires, lay servants’ breakfast, deliver nursery breakfast.

7:30 am Water and tea trays to family, empty chamber pots

7:45 am Servants breakfast

8:30 am prayers

9:00 am Family breakfast

9:30 am Clear and clean

12:00 pm Lunch, servants hall and nursery

1:00 pm Family lunch

2:30 pm Clear Lunch, rest

4:30 pm Tea-trays for household

5:30 pm Servants’ tea, nursery tea

6:00 pm Lay dinner, help in kitchen

7:00 pm Family dinner, serve and clear

9:00 pm Servants supper

10:00 pm Bed

This made me realize that even though servants were very busy, there were short times of rest during the day. Those times could very well be filled with naughtiness. Grin.

The other books provided great information on exactly how much the servants were aware of in the house, as well as the differences between working in a bachelor’s home and a home of a family. 

The Lady of the house held all the morals of the house. If a maid worked for a bachelor, it was very likely she would never gain employment with a family, as her virtue would be called into question. It also reflected poorly on the Lady of the house if one of her servants showed poor morals. In my book, House Of Sin, there is no Lady of the house.

I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about the research I did while writing my story, House of Sin.

Hugs,

Lacy.

Thank you, Lacy. Please leave a comment to win a copy of House of Sin.

Cowards: Deserters

Anna C. Bowling

A few years back, Ancestry.com offered free access to US Civil War records. Since my parents’ ancestors lived in different countries during the nineteenth century, I searched with my husband’s last name, keying in the states where his ancestors lived at the time. This search yielded an interesting surprise…someone with the right last name from the right state joined the army, only to desert three days later. Was there a deserter in the family tree? While we haven’t pursued the genealogy far enough to know if this deserter has any direct blood ties to my husband, no writer can resist playing the 'what if' game with this one. What is a deserter, why would someone leave their fellow soldiers in a time of war and how would that affect the rest of their lives? Rich fodder for any writer, and for a historical writer, the well is bottomless. Let’s take a look.

Article 85 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice defines a deserter as:

(a) Any member of the armed forces who--
(1) without authority goes or remains absent from his unit, organization, or place of duty with intent to remain away therefrom permanently;
(2) quits his unit, organization, or place of duty with intent to avoid hazardous duty or to shirk important service; or
(3) without being regularly separated from one of the armed forces enlists or accepts an appointment in the same or another on of the armed forces without fully disclosing the fact that he has not been regularly separated, or enters any foreign armed service except when authorized by the United States;

This is more severe than merely going absent without leave, which implies a return or intention to return, and far different from the conscientious objector, who refuses military service on the grounds of deeply held personal beliefs.

The Roman historian, Vegitius, stated that desertion took more of a toll on an army’s morale than deaths in battle. Deserters not only take themselves out of the battle, but also may leave doubts in the minds of those who remain as to the wisdom of remaining, not to mention feelings of anger, abandonment or myriad other concerns. Not, most would agree, a distraction active duty personnel need. As Vegitius’ treatise, De Re Militari, dates back to approximately 450 CE, we can see deserters have been a serious issue for military units for a very long time.

The reasons an individual might desert can vary- panic, inability to adjust to the rigors of military life, shock from the horrific conditions of battle, or even homesickness, a common cause for soldiers on both sides of the American Civil War, especially when battle sites were close to those very homes they missed. Both sides of the conflict were known to induce enemy combatants to desert, as one means to deplete the other’s army, a tactic Vegitius would probably recognize far too well.

Recovered deserters in the United States in the nineteenth century could expect to be flogged, branded or tattooed as well as imprisoned or sent back to the front, and the ultimate penalty for desertion in wartime remains as death by firing squad, though this was last carried out in 1945.

In 1904, British author A. E. W. Mason published his adventure novel, The Four Feathers, a story that examines the consequences of one man’s desertion from his unit prior to their deployment to the Sudan. This act of costs the protagonist not only his closest friends and the woman he loves, but also causes him to face his deepest fears as he seeks to make things right and remove the stain of cowardice from his name. The Four Feathers has been through several cinematic adaptations, as early as 1915 and as recently as 2002. The original text is available via Project Gutenberg here.

As shown in The Four Feathers, there is a hope that the deserter will have a second chance to uphold the oath they took when they first donned their uniform. In the hands of a talented writer, such a character could be hero or villain, find triumph or tragedy. How would such a character fare in one of your stories, writers? Readers, have you ever read a story with a character who deserted their organization?

Writing historical romances allows Anna C. Bowling to travel through time on a daily basis and make the voices in her head pay rent. Her current release, ORPHANS IN THE STORM, is available from Awe-Struck E-books.

Good Times: The First Ward Ball

By Lorelie Brown

Corruption, booze and Chicago.

Nope, I'm not talking about Al Capone. Chicago was a happening place long before him.

Mike "Hinky Dink" Kenna and "Bathhouse" John Coughlin were aldermen for Chicago's First Ward. The First Ward was also known as the Levee, on the south side of the city. Coughlin was a big, brash man who apparently wore very brightly colored clothes and was elected as alderman in 1892. (And he kept up the habit of writing bad poetry. Really bad. Who titles a poem "She Sleeps by the Drainage Canal" in all seriousness?) Kenna was his exact opposite, small and quiet, but he still won election in 1897.

Hinky Dink Kenna (left) and Bathhouse John Coughlin (right).

The Levee wasn't exactly the most posh area of Chicago, not by far. In fact, it was the red light district, where thieves, pickpockets and brawlers roamed. The prostitutes ranged from the cheap tricks of "Bed Bug Row" to the high-class birds of the Everleigh Sisters' establishment, where a bottle of wine was $12 downstairs or $15 in the room. (I promise, it's more money than it sounds like these days.)

So when it came time for fundraising, they did it up right.

Kenna, Coughlin and every other official of the area sold tickets to the First Ward Ball, to be held in December. Buying a ticket was good. Buying a pack of fifty tickets was even better. Not buying tickets could leave a saloon owner or brothel madam to all sorts of harassment--from the police, of course. Ah, extortion at its best. Starting in 1896, the First Ward Ball only got wilder and wilder until 1908, the last year.

But the fun really started at the actual ball. Thousands of people crammed into the Coliseum. At midnight Hinky Dink Kenna and Bathhouse John Coughlin led the entire crowd--well, those who weren't too drunk to stand--in a procession around the floor as the band played "Hail, Hail, The Gang's All Here."

After that, things hit a fevered pitch. Madams handed out free champagne and the bottles were stacked in pyramids--until they became too tall and began to topple. Drunk men ripped at the clothes of unaccompanied women. A thirty-foot bar crumpled under yet another brawl. People dressed in bathing suits, fine gowns and costumes--everything from clowns to Indians--and one notorious whore wore a nun's habit. In the corner, another prostitute whipped willing men's naked butts with a crop.

By 1908, the last year, 30,000 people were crammed in a venue meant for half that number. And every single one of them were determined to get their drink on. Women passed out from the heat (and the booze) and were crowd-surfed to the corner, where they were simply piled in stacks.

I mean seriously. This was a political fundraiser.

But it was also the last of its kind. Reformers had been after Mayor Busse to put a halt to the spectacle, but he'd resisted. The Coliseum was the victim of a bombing December 12, 1908, the day before the ball. It didn't hold them up that year, but next year they were done for. Mayor Busse gave in to pressure from the reformers to deny a liquor license and without alcohol there wasn't much left.

Hinky Dink and Bathhouse John held on to power a little while longer, despite being forced to less dramatic methods of fundraising. Eventually though, they retired. Other men swept in and took their place, including Al Capone. But he'd never hold a torch to the vivid descriptions of the First Ward Ball, at least not in my eyes.

Humor: Tall Tales of the Old West

By Jacquie Rogers

Tall tales aren't anything new. The structure has been around for millennia, and many follow the same structure as the Greek myths. So from Ancient Greece, let's climb into the time-machine and step into 19th Century America. The wild country and isolation of the North American west where each day brought a new battle with nature, was fertile ground some pretty entertaining stories to sprout.

Let's sit around the campfire or the family hearth and chew the fat about these tales.

What do Paul Bunyan and John Henry have in common? They're seemingly ordinary men in ordinary jobs, average Joes, really, except these men have extraordinary abilities. Nineteenth century superheroes, you might say. They run into a problem, something we all relate to, only their problem is escalated. Not to fear, though, because they also have a solution--something a normal person would never have thought of.

Seemingly ordinary man in every day circumstances
Finds himself in a pickle
Uses extraordinary powers as a solution

Most of the stories were (and are) funny because of the imagery, metaphors, and exaggeration. Here's S.E. Schlosser's interpretation of Pecos Bill Rides a Tornado, which explains in just a few short paragraphs how the Grand Canyon and Death Valley came into existence, as well as the creation of rodeo. Quite a tall order, I'd say!

Exaggeration is the key. A tall tale just isn't tall without stretching the truth a bit--sometimes a good bit. Like my grandpa always said, "A little embellishment always makes a good story better." His brother took that to heart when he wrote Can Farm Boys Be Cow Boys.

Now, if this had taken place in about 1868, with cowpunchers sitting around the campfire eating sourdough biscuits and beans, you can just imagine how this story could grow with each telling. Pretty soon, Nebraska Neil would be there right beside Pecos Bill, riding a tornado or using a river to rope a lightning bolt.

The Greeks had Herakles and Perseus, the Spanish had El Cid, we have Superman and the Green Hornet, so it's no wonder that the cowboys came up with Pecos Bill, Bigfoot Wallace, and Sal Fink, the Mississippi Screamer.

And we're not done telling tall tales yet!

Sources:
American Folklore
ibiblio.org
42eXplore

Jacquie
Faery Merry Christmas (a Kindle novella) Down Home Ever Lovin' Mule Blues (See the Book Video featuring Justin Saragueta) Jacquie's website * 1st Turning Point * Myspace * Twitter * Facebook Faery Special Romances * Book Video * Royalties go to Children's Tumor Foundation, ending Neurofibromatosis through Research

Fashion: Ready-to-Wear

By Eliza Tucker

From shop to store: prêt-a-porter sales have been a long time coming. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, clothiers' guilds limited the mass production of clothes, but by the 1700s, the US, China, and Europe could all boast flourishing clothing industries.

In 1820, the measuring tape was invented, which helped make consistent sizing methods. And in 1846, Elias Howe's sewing machine further increased the availability of clothes made en masse.

During the American Civil War, the demand for mass-produced uniforms was high. Sizes became standardized so that soldiers order uniforms to fit without much, if any, tailoring. After the war, men's clothes retained the standard sizing, making it easy to buy ready-made clothes.

Department stores grew in popularity. The first of these stores, Le Bon Marche ("the good deal"), opened in Paris in 1838. In New York, Alexander Turney Stewart opened his own store, aptly named AT Stewart, also called The Marble Palace, on Broadway (pictured). The Marble Palace officially became a department store in 1858, and by 182, it was linked with Macy's, B. Altman, and Lord & Taylor to form "The Ladies' Mile" on Broadway. In 1869, Stewart became a millionaire.

Other stores followed. In 1872, Bloomingdale's opened, and Bergdorf-Goodman opened its swanky doors in 1906.

Isaac Singer's electric sewing machine, which had come out in 1889, was another catalyst for ready-made clothing. Clothing factories popped up all over the world, since garment making had never been easier. Using an electric machines in an assembly line, even the most unskilled seamstresses could be of use, as they only had to learn how to make a single piece of clothing. This also created a way for clothing manufacturers to branch out into women's clothing, starting with shirtwaists, which are long, tapered blouses worn with flowing skirts.

Sears, Roebuck & Co., which had begun as a mail-order service in 1839, took on clothing manufacturer Julius Rosenwald as part owner in 1895. With the addition of ready-to-wear clothing available in standard sizes, the catalog grew from 320 pages, to more than 530. In 1925, Sears opened its first retail store. By the end of 1929, 319 stores had popped across America.

Ready-to-wear clothing had found a place in the middle-class, where people were too busy to make their own clothes but not wealthy enough to hire someone to custom-sew them. After World War II, haute couture ready-to-wear began to pop up in Europe from designers like Dior and Givenchy, names still expensive today.

Food & Drink: Cracker Jack

By Eliza Tucker

The more you eat, the more you want.

In 1908, Jack Norworth penned the song, "Take Me Out to the Ball Game", the chorus of which became famous, and is still sung at baseball games today:

Katie Casey was base ball mad.
Had the fever and had it bad;
Just to root for the home town crew,
Ev'ry sou Katie blew.
On a Saturday, he young beau
Called to see if she'd like to go,
To see a show but Miss Kate said,
"No, I'll tell you what you can do."

"Take me out to the ball game,
Take me out with the crowd.
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack,
I don't care if I never get back,
Let me root, root, root for the home team,
If they don't win it's a shame.
For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out,
At the old ball game."

The official story tells that upon finding out his brother's secret for keeping the popcorn and peanuts from sticking together, Louis Rueckheim exclaimed, "That's cracker jack!" WH Rueckheim liked the term so much, he has it trademarked.

In 1899, Cracker Jack began to be sold in boxes, rather than tubs.

Henry Eckstein (1860-1935), a part owner and partner of the company, invented the "triple proof package" or "waxed sealed package," a moisture proof paper package to retain freshness. This new type of packaging allowed the company to mass produce and sell Cracker Jacks worldwide, and thus become a national icon.
-- What's Cooking America

In 1908, fifteen years after introduction of the molasses-covered candy and popcorn concoction at the World's Fair in Chicago, Norworth's song solidified the candy corn's place in American culture.

In 1912, Cracker Jack offered "a prize in every box." Some of these prizes? Miniature magnifying glass, tiny toys, booklets, Morse code charts, presidential cards, movie player cards, and novelty whistles. A collection of prizes can be found here.

In 1918, Sailor Jack and Bingo appear on the packages. Cracker Jack has been included in famous fiction works such as Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and the film Breakfast at Tiffany's. The US Navy's traditional uniform is called "The Cracker Jack," and July 5 is National Cracker Jack Day. Recently, a complete set (176) of 1915 Cracker Jack prize baseball cards was sold for $800,000 at auction.

Sports & Entertainment: Baseball Cards

By Eliza Tucker

As far back as the 1840s, baseball was a popular sport in the U.S. As with any tournament game, its players and fans wanted a way to show their support for specific teams and the sport in general, and so many people made their own cabinet cards with photographs of players or teams pasted onto wood or thick paper for the purpose of displaying their interests.

In years following the American Civil War, Peck and Snyder, a sporting goods company based in New York City, came up with a way to further market the game--and their business. By printing "trade cards" with famous players or teams on the face with advertisements on the back. These cards were not sold, but handed out on the streets, much like today's fliers.

During the 1870's to the 1890's, trade cards were popular form of advertising. In fact baseball theme trade cards made up only a fraction of the total trade cards. Trade cards depicted many subjects, including presidents, animals and comics. A popular type of baseball trade card were comic trade cards, which shown baseball scenes in a comical situation. Collecting trade cards and pasting them into scrapbooks became one of the country's most popular hobbies. Many of these baseball trade cards found today have some damage on the back where they were removed from scrap books. Collecting old trade cards is popular with some collectors today...

Goodwin & Co., another tobacco company in New York, issued the Old Judge cards, a small picture card that was inserted into packs of Old Judge brand tobacco. Goodwin & Co. produced these cards both as a 'stiffener' for their cigarette packs and to boost sales.
Cycleback.com

By the start of the first World War, the tobacco companies had released their hold on the baseball cards, but the prize prints had long since found their way into Cracker Jack boxes, gum packages, and even boxes from clothing shops.

Weapons and Armies: The Tong Wars

By Eliza Tucker

All wars begin on smaller scales: a push for more freedom, a governmental revolution, or the desire for resources. New York City of the mid-1800s was no different. Dozens of gangs, small and large, violent and not-so-violent, ran the city with their support of the police through grafts and vice rackets.

Originally, life within the Chinese communities was dominated by a few large family and district associations with restrictive membership. As a protective response to their dominance mutual aid associations, so-called tongs, emerged. The tongs adopted the norms and values of the Triad subculture. Their secretive nature, combined with the fact that they could recruit members without traditional restrictions, enabled them to overpower the family and district associations and to take on the social functions of arbitration, protection and exploitation in Chinatown. A tong is not a criminal organization per se, but a natural means of obtaining and using mutually obligate bonds (guanxi) for both criminal and non-criminal purposes.

Organizing Chinatown: Race and Racketeering in New York City, 1890-1910
Jeffrey Scott McIllwain
Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2004

Photo: Mock Duck

When the tongs first emigrated to the American West, they served as mutual aid societies. Quickly the 'mutual aid' provided began to resemble the strongarm tactics of the mafia and Irish mob. The tongs spread across the US to Chicago, Boston, and New York City. In the early 1900s, two Chinese gangs took hold of the few Manhattan blocks known as Chinatown. Led by newcomer Sai Wing Mock, known as Mock Duck or "Clay Pigeon", the Hip Sings launched a war against the much larger On Leong Tong, led by press-and-police pet, Tom Lee.

Mock Duck, at age 22, politely asked the older, legendary Tom Lee for half the revenues of all of the On Leong gambling and prostitution rackets. After a long stare, Tom Lee laughed and walked away, without saying a word.

Two days later, Mock Duck set fire to an On Leong boarding house, killing two tong members. Shortly after, an On Leong member was attacked by two hatchetmen. Tom Lee replied to the attack with an order to kill all Hip Sing members, with an emphasis on Mock Duck.

Mock Duck survived stabbings and shootings, and began wearing a chain mail vest under his clothes. Known for his terrible aim with a gun, Mock Duck soon realized his best chance against the hatchetmen was to stoop to the ground, duck his head, shut his eyes, and shoot two pistols in any direction he pleased. Using this method, Mock Duck rarely failed to hit his attackers, but often hit innocent bystanders as well.

Tom Lee put a $1000 price on Mock Duck's head--that's almost $25,000 in today's currency--and the warrant fueled the fires in the Tong Wars. Meanwhile, Mock Duck was busy securing his tong's ties to the Four Brothers, China's oldest and most respected family guild. The Four Brothers joined the war against the On Leongs after Mock Duck promised them cultural power in New York. Mock Duck also drafted the two most dangerous hatchetmen in San Francisco, who are estimated to have murdered around 100 men in the Tong Wars.

While Tom Lee had the police force in his pocket, so Mock Duck appealed to the religious reformers for added support. He told the popular Rev. Charles Parkhurst about the good Chinese trying to live honestly, and about the terrible vices the On Leongs pushed upon them, such as the singsong girls (prostitutes) and the opium dens. Mock Duck provided Parkhurst with a list of On Leong's establishment, and Parkhurst used his favor with most of New York's upper class to force the authorities into action.

But Mock Duck kept the Ace up his sleeve. Tom Lee realized that Mock Duck hadn't given Parkhurst any addresses along On Leong's Mott Street, from whence the On Leong's highest revenue came. Tom Lee couldn't turn over any information about the Hip Sings in retaliation if he wanted to stay in business.

In 1906, Tom Lee finally conceded, only to try to rebuild the On Leongs in 1909. This time, the police involved themselves fully, working toward peace more than profit. These battles, fought within just five diminutive city blocks, were responsible for approximately 350 deaths.

The Love Cycle: Romance Novels and the Working Girl

By Eliza Tucker

At the turn of the twentieth century, London, Paris, and New York attracted dreamers and bohemians. Young suburban women who, when finished with as much school as their parents deemed necessary, shuffled into big cities in search of employment. Excited by stories of girls making the munificent sum of $8 per week, young women went from milliner to florist, factory to laundry-room in search of the ideal job and the ideal wage.

The Industrial Revolution set more than just machines in motion. Working-class women were thrust into close proximity to men on a continual basis in every part of their lives. Girls were allowed to walk city streets, to dine with men in certain establishments, and to date without supervision without suffering much in the way of tarnished reputations. In many ways, the working-class woman enjoyed more freedom than the lady of fashion.

With literacy on the rise, romance lived in the dress factories and sweatshops, where the hopeful young employees read books during breaks, hoping for better lives. In The Long Day by Dorothy Richardson, the narrator considers the role of fiction in the lives of working girls of her era, New York City in 1905:

Promptly at half-past twelve the awakening machinery called us back to the workaday world. Story-books were tucked away, and their entranced readers dragged themselves back to the machines and steaming paste-pots, to dream and talk as they worked, not of their own fellows of last night’s masquerade, but of bankers and mill-owners who in fiction have wooed and won and honorably wedded just such poor toilers as they themselves.

This entertaining discourse over the daily task of box-making follows:

IN WHICH PHOEBE AND MRS. SMITH HOLD FORTH UPON MUSIC AND LITERATURE

Don't you never read no story-books?" Mrs. Smith asked, stirring the paste-pot preparatory to the afternoon's work. She looked at me curiously out of her shrewd, snapping dark eyes as she awaited my answer. I was conscious that Mrs. Smith didn't like me for some reason or other, and I was anxious to propitiate her. I was pretty certain she thought me a boresome prig, and I determined I'd prove I wasn't. My confession of an omnivorous appetite for all sorts of story-books had the desired effect; and when I confessed further, that I liked best of all a real, tender, sentimental love-story, she asked amiably:

"How do you like 'Little Rosebud's Lovers'?"

"I've never read that," I replied. "Is it good?"

"It's fine," interposed Phoebe; "but I like 'Woven on Fate's Loom' better--don't you?" The last addressed to Mrs. Smith.

"No, I can't say that's my impinion," returned our vis-à-vis, with a judicious tipping of the head to one side as she soused her dripping paste-brush over the strips. "Not but what 'Woven on Fate's Loom' is a good story in its way, either, for them that likes that sort of story. But I think 'Little Rosebud's Lovers' is more int'resting, besides being better wrote."

"And that's just what I don't like about it," retorted Phoebe, her fingers traveling like lightning up and down the corners of the boxes. "You like this hot-air talk, and I don't; and the way them fellows and girls shoot hot-air at each other in that there 'Little Rosebud's Lovers' is enough to beat the street-cars!"

Phoebe goes on to tell the story of 'Little Rosebud's Lovers,' which is complete with an exotic setting (South Carolina), two lovely sisters (but only Rosebud had a demeanor to match her physical beauty; the other, Maud was jealous and spiteful), and Harvard-grad lover (who turned out to be 'a villain of the deepest dye'). The story-book fans go on to discuss the plot holes in a way that would fit well on a current-day lit forum:

"Where did she get the money to come to New York with?" interrupted the practical Phoebe. "That's something I don't understand. If she didn't have no money to hire a room at a hotel down in South Carolina for overnight, I'd like to know where she got the money for a railroad ticket."

"Well, that's just all you know about them swells," retorted Mrs. Smith. "I suppose a rich man's daughter like that can travel around all over the country on a pass."

The banter continues for a chapter, and gives us a great look into the origins of romance, while the book glimpses how average girls fit courtship and passion into otherwise taxing lives. Write on, romance authors!