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ladder and break his neck when he’s but five-and-thirty like your father did. The last thing this family needs is another miserable spinster.”
Eliza pulled the laces of my stays, cutting off my reply. I gasped and saw tiny black dots.
By the time they had tightened, pinned, and locked me into my clothes, I could feel my stomach rubbing against my backbone. Mother pulled my arms back until my shoulder blades touched, the proper posture for a lady.
“She looks like a china doll,” observed Grandfather as we departed. “I will break just as easily,” I muttered.