Study Questions

1. What does Clarissa hand to Lucy?

2. Why would Clarissa have liked to have been invited to Millicent Bruton’s lunch party?

3. What word describes Clarissa’s bed in the attic?

4. About which moment in Baron Marbot’s military career is Clarissa reading?

5. What is Clarissa’s first impression of Sally Seton?

6. How had Sally arranged flowers in such a different fashion from what Clarissa’s Aunt Helen was accustomed?

7. What quotation from Shakespeare’s Othello did Clarissa remember in connection with Sally?

8. What did Sally ask from Joseph Breitkopf?

9. What does Clarissa finally decide about her feelings regarding not being invited to Lady Bruton’s lunch?

10. What does Lucy offer to do that so pleases Clarissa?

Answers

1. Clarissa hands her parasol to Lucy.

2. Clarissa would have wanted to attend Millicent Bruton’s lunch party because they are said to be extraordinarily amusing.

3. “Narrow” is the word used to describe Clarissa’s bed in the attic.

4. Clarissa reads about Baron Marbot’s retreat from Moscow.

5. Clarissa’s first impression of Sally Seton is of Sally sitting on the floor, with her arms around her knees, smoking a cigarette.

6. Instead of using the many little vases in Bourton, Sally had cut the heads off the flowers and made them float in a bowl of water. Clarissa thought that the effect was extraordinary, but her Aunt Helen thought that it was a wicked way to treat flowers.

7. In connection to Sally, Clarissa thought of the quotation “I fit were now to die ‘twere now to be most happy.”

8. Sally asked Joseph Breitkopf (another guest at Bourton that summer) to tell her the names of the stars.

9. Clarissa finally decides that feeling vain or suspicious about not being invited to Lady Bruton’s lunch is utterly base.

10. Clarissa is very pleased by Lucy’s offer to mend Clarissa’s dress. Clarissa refuses, saying that Lucy has enough on her hands already.