'But why... did she feel like her eldest brother was completely undeserving of such a fine young woman?'
'Would a fresh flower still bloom if it were stuck on a pile of barren cow dung?'
Felix Thorne also stopped and asked doubtfully, "First in the whole school, every year?"
"You mean last place, right?" Phoebe Huxley added. She sincerely believed that any girl who was actually at the top of her class wouldn't give her eldest son the time of day.
"Isn't Howard the one who's always last?" Jim Thorne reminded him loudly, earning a fierce glare from Howard Thorne. "I ranked seventy-second in the school on this semester's final exam."
"Your school only has two senior classes, with less than a hundred students total," Jim Thorne muttered, not daring to say it any louder for fear of getting a beating from his older brother.
