Status Updates From Thank Heaven Fasting

'Her eyes grew misty as she tried, vainly, to recapture something of the glamour and excitement that had surrounded her brief, youthful romance. It seemed, actually, to have happened to someone else, for she could no longer revive in herself any spark of the innocent, ignorant confidence in the right of youth to love and happiness that had been hers at the age of eighteen.'

“My poor child, you don’t know what you’re talking about. A young man who’s honourably in love with a girl asks her to marry him. He doesn’t behave as he might behave with a — a vulgar little shop-girl. Oh Monica, my poor darling, I do pray God that you haven’t destroyed your whole chances by this — this terrible business. If only we can keep people from finding out!”

'What a pity that one couldn’t accept Claude Ashe, even if he did propose! Probably, however, he never would, for no really nice and honourable man proposed to a girl unless he was in a position to offer her a home at least as comfortable as the one from which he was taking her.'

'Much was said in the days of Monica’s early youth about being good. Life — the section of it that was visible from the angle of Eaton Square — was full of young girls who were all being good. Even a girl who was tiresome and “didn’t get on with her mother” was never anything but good, since opportunities for being anything else were practically non-existent.'

I'm starting "Long Awaited Reads Month" with this book by Delafield, which came recommended by Ana. She, like me, loved Consequences, so I'm very curious how I'll like this one. Thus far, it's very astute (and a little saddening) in its observations on life of a girl that is just coming out.