The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 4

by Beth Brower

“Loaves and fishes, Emma, loaves and fishes. One can appear as sanctimonious as required if one can speak with authority regarding the loaves and the fishes. It is ironclad.”

“I make it a point to look good in whatever I wear.”

I could be happy staring at such a husband. You should marry him. We can spend our shooting weekends staring at your husband while mine pays the bill.”

I heard a woman mutter a prayer afterward that asked heaven to cause whatever calamity necessary to keep Young Hawkes at our parish, to which I bowed my head and whispered, “Amen.”

It did not bode well. It did not even really bode.

The revelation was uncomfortable, yet I could hardly fault the man. That’s not true and I strike it from the record. I could fault the man. And I do. I fault the man for his part in the whole affair.

It was the most fiscally romantic thing I had ever heard.

I prayed most fervently that our meal would be silent. Aloud. I prayed aloud.

Rain this morning. It smells of Heaven. Or how Heaven would smell, were I in charge.

But honestly, if one is to wear orange, wear it with class. No need to be a spectacle.

“My mother says that there are no greater dens of iniquity than the country houses of wealthy Englishmen.”

Perhaps I should marry Roland. He would buy me an entire library. It couldn’t be more than a year before he gifted me a book I hadn’t read. Later Is it immoral to marry a man solely to gain a library? And if that man happens to be tremendously good looking, is it more or less of a sin? Later Mercenary marriages happen all the time. In churches, no less.

Any reservations you have regarding such a plan should be dismissed without thought. My opinions outrank yours in every way.

Not that I am considering it with any seriousness…but how lucrative is piracy?

Which means I’ve cast myself as Moses. I quite like that. If the men are very, very good, perhaps I will pray for manna.

Looking for quiet does not follow I was looking for solitude.”