"Such a shame," Peggy said, though her tone implied she wasn't terribly offended on behalf of Louise Quibbleberry. "It's not as though marriage is a race." She followed this with a raise of her eyebrow and a significant look towards Rachel, conveying what she wouldn't put into words: except, of course, when it is. She wouldn't actual say anything about reasons Miss Quibbleberry's parents might prefer her to be married quickly rather than married well, because doing so would be gossiping (in a way that she had convinced herself this was not), but privately she agreed with Rachel that there was likely something the matter with anyone whose parents had been pushing them into events since fifteen. Personally, Peggy hadn't been in much of a rush — and if it weren't for many of her peers debuting this season, she might very happily have followed Rachel off to finishing school, or investigated something like the Flint Institute for Advanced Magic. She knew she would be married and married well one day, but she was not at all inclined for that day to fall in the calendar year 1893.
"I'd rather be exceptionally well-matched on my twenty-eighth birthday than poorly matched on my eighteenth," she declared, though obviously she felt she was in danger of neither. She didn't know when she planned to marry, but she did consider herself quite the catch (and Witch Weekly had not seemed to disagree) so she doubted it would be very difficult to acquire a husband when she wanted one. "Oh — there it goes," she added, as someone trod on the dangling hem of Miss Quibbleberry's skirt and tore it another three inches. It was still clinging on, just barely, but surely she would have to excuse herself from the dance floor now? The bloke who had stepped on it (not her partner, at least in this case) had nearly tripped — at this point she was a safety hazard!
"I'd rather be exceptionally well-matched on my twenty-eighth birthday than poorly matched on my eighteenth," she declared, though obviously she felt she was in danger of neither. She didn't know when she planned to marry, but she did consider herself quite the catch (and Witch Weekly had not seemed to disagree) so she doubted it would be very difficult to acquire a husband when she wanted one. "Oh — there it goes," she added, as someone trod on the dangling hem of Miss Quibbleberry's skirt and tore it another three inches. It was still clinging on, just barely, but surely she would have to excuse herself from the dance floor now? The bloke who had stepped on it (not her partner, at least in this case) had nearly tripped — at this point she was a safety hazard!
