• Someone disagreeable is trying to persuade you to take a trip to Bath.
• Your father is absolutely terrible with money. No one has ever told him this.
• All of your dresses look like nightgowns.
• Someone disagreeable tries to persuade you to join a game of cards.
• A woman who hates you is playing the pianoforte.
• A picnic has gone horribly wrong.
• A member of the armed forces has revealed himself to be morally deficient.
• You once took a walk with a cad.
• Everyone in the neighborhood, including your mother, has ranked you and your sisters in order of hotness. You know exactly where you fall on the list.
• You say something arch yet generous about another woman both younger and richer than you.
• You have one friend; he is thirty years old and does business with your father and you are going to marry him someday.
• You attempt to befriend someone slightly above or slightly below your social station and are soundly punished for it.
• A girl you have only just met tells you a secret, and you despise her for it.
• You have five hundred a year. From who? Five hundred what? No one knows. No one cares. You have it. It’s yours. Every year. All five hundred of it.
• There are three men in your life: one true love, one tempting but rakish acquaintance, and a third distant possibility — he is courteous and attentive but only slightly interested in you. He is almost certainly the cousin or good friend of your true love, and nothing will ever happen between you two.
• A woman who is not your mother treats you like her own daughter. Your actual mother is dead or ridiculous.
• You develop a resentment at a public dance.
• Someone you know has fallen ill. Not melodramatically ill, just interestingly so.
• A man proposes to you, then to another, lesser woman when you politely spurn him. This delights you to no end.
• A charming man attempts to flirt with you. This is terrible.
• You have become exceedingly ashamed of what your conduct has been.
• A shocking marriage of convenience takes place within your social circle two-thirds of the way in.
• A woman in an absurd hat is being an absolute bitch to you; there is nothing you can do about it.
