Sally’s next younger sister is Elizabeth Arabella, instantly nicknamed (thanks to one of her young male cousins) Lizard. Lizard’s kind-hearted mama and her godmother Miss Austen do all they can to alter the name to Lizzie, but to no avail. Lizard the child remains, even as it becomes obvious that she is growing up to be the most breathtakingly beautiful member of an unusually comely family. Lizard herself seems quite happy with her reptilian sobriquet. To the dismay of many a young buck, she prefers mythology and natural history to fashion papers and the latest on-dits. “She really is quite the most smashing little brain-box,” her father exclaims proudly. When not reading heavy tomes or turning over damp stones at the bottom of the garden, Lizard is secretly preparing for her life’s work. Ever since she can remember, she has been passionately drawn to that most glamorous of professions — that most dangerous and exhilarating of careers, where one lives life balanced on a knife’s edge, seizing the day, never knowing what the next moment may bring: GOVERNESSING. Lizard is the proud possessor of a talisman: a tiny gold locket that once belonged to Marie Louise de Rohan, governess to the young Louis XVI. Within, in tiny, exquisite script, it bears the time-honored motto: “I can’t bear to do any more marking just now — pour me a glass of wine, will you?”

The next Fitzhugh child is Edmund Flashheart Percy Melchett, commonly called Bob. Bob is a golden child, sunny-tempered and warmhearted, who resembles his papa more every day. He is the founder of a select Mayfair club for young gentlemen known as the Drones — a fraternity that continues to thrive right up to the middle of the twentieth century. Bob’s interest in apiculture is deep and abiding. By the time he is eighteen, he has acquired a large number of hives which he cares for on his country estate in Sussex. He also raises Jersey cows (though they make his mama shudder), and grows a great deal of excellent hothouse fruit. Bob’s happiness is complete when, at the age of twenty-two, he meets and marries Jaquinetta, an intoxicatingly lovely young milkmaid who smells of hay and cream. Together, Bob and Jaquinetta devote themselves to the production of marmalade, raspberry jam, clotted cream, and honey, which they share over many a blissful and lingering breakfast table.

The youngest Fitzhugh is Gilliflower Emerald Gentian Lily Rose. As of this writing, she is still so very young that only two things have ever happened to her:

1) Her elder siblings are making a concerted push to nickname her Cauliflower. So far the title has not stuck, possibly owing to the infant Gilliflower’s weary and disdainful glance whenever she hears the name. Observers suspect that as she grows, she may develop a more sophisticated sense of humor — demanding some actual cleverness to make her smile — than that possessed by her merry but easily-impressed siblings.