About this story
At dawn a broken carriage wheel brings the novelist Valeria Du Prel to your door, and her plain talk about the cost of serious work is the first encouragement your family has never offered. When an admiring visitor, Hubert Temperley, invites himself to hear you play, Valeria's warning about what his admiration actually permits stays with you.
How it opens
Moonlight entered the old keep through deep windows and silvered the uneven garret floor.
Five siblings danced a muted reel while the house slept two storeys below their stamping feet.
Algitha FullertonThe dance loses its argument whenever Hadria leaves the circle.
Fred FullertonTonight our president intends to prove that fate has been cheating at cards.
Choose
Can talent survive when duty consumes every hour?
Suppose circumstances defeat strength without ever defeating courage.