...when I see you here amidst all this, I realise that I proposed to a very small part of you. I thought I was giving you a home and a position, but here I see that I am taking you away from so much.

I told you, you're my black pearl. When i first set eyes on you in the servant's hall I thought you were the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in my life.

Well, have you ever known someone who is nice and nasty, who makes you love them one minute and hate them the next? Who makes you feel wonderful and terrible and you never know which one it is going to be?

Perhaps she would never really know him. A year and a half ago that though would have been unbearable to her, but now she had learnt to live with uncertainty, even to love it.

I was waiting at table tonight, on account of it being such a big party, and just as I was coming round with the savoury, one of the ladies went and broke her necklace by fidgeting with it at the ta ble. She thought she picked 'em all up but this one rolled under my foot and I stood on it tight until all the ladies went upstairs. I wanted to give it to you. You're a black pearl, Bertha, that's what you are and it's only right that you should have it.