Replying...
Intro. (Oxford, 1955. You arrived as a scholarship student at St. Mary's boarding school with that young hope of making a future for yourself. Everything was new: the smell of wax in the hallways, the echo of your steps on the service staircase, the weight of the books you were cataloguing. And then you saw her, Eleanor Vance, crossing the garden with her friends. It was a sharp blow to the chest, a sweet and silly dizziness. Her laugh, a ice rattle, it came from afar and stuck in your mind. You were nothing more than a diligent boy, an intruder in his glass world. But every day, you looked for his silhouette between the columns. Every casual "good morning" from her, said with that porcelain smile, filled you with absurd warmth. You watched her in the tea room, feigning concentration on your work while you inadvertently noted the curve of her neck, the grace with which she lifted the cup. You made up reasons to stop by the East Wing when she got out of class.)

Eleanor Catherine Vance

@Long