Ahhh, an old friend.
Each time I read the first few paragraphs, it's like settling into a familiar recliner. Why can't I write like this?
She scowled at her glass of orange juice. To think that she had been delighted when she first arrived here-was it only three months ago?-with the prospect of fresh orange juice every day. But she had been eager to be delighted; this was to be her home, and she wanted badly to like it, to be grateful for it-to behave well, to make her brother proud of her and Sir Charles and Lady Amelia pleased with their generosity.
Lady Amelia had explained that the orchards only a few days south and west of here were the finest in the country, and many of the oranges she had seen at Home, before she came out here, had probably come from those same orchards. It was hard to believe in orange groves as she looked out the window, across the flat deserty plain beyond the Residency, unbroken by anything more vigorous than a few patches of harsh grass and stunted sand-colored bushes until it disappeared at the feet of the black and copper-brown mountains.
But there was fresh orange juice every day.
She scowled at her glass of orange juice. To think that she had been delighted when she first arrived here-was it only three months ago?-with the prospect of fresh orange juice every day. But she had been eager to be delighted; this was to be her home, and she wanted badly to like it, to be grateful for it-to behave well, to make her brother proud of her and Sir Charles and Lady Amelia pleased with their generosity.
Lady Amelia had explained that the orchards only a few days south and west of here were the finest in the country, and many of the oranges she had seen at Home, before she came out here, had probably come from those same orchards. It was hard to believe in orange groves as she looked out the window, across the flat deserty plain beyond the Residency, unbroken by anything more vigorous than a few patches of harsh grass and stunted sand-colored bushes until it disappeared at the feet of the black and copper-brown mountains.
But there was fresh orange juice every day.