"I shall when there is a courtship about which to tell you!" she chided, playfully feigning exasperation, though she knew she could not be comfortable until they moved on to a safer topic of conversation. Bellona decided to try to move them there by force; evidently, it was the only way.

"Besides, I am not so long in the tooth as certain debutantes—how fares your husband's sister?" Antigone's own sister was older still, but Bellona had never much minded Ligeia Baudelaire, and it was clear to anyone who knew them both that her friend was not well-loved by Miss Lestrange.