Gabe Chaucer had already seen the mirror. He lightly tapped Mortimer Quincy's desk, signaling him not to look in the mirror during morning reading.
He wasn't angry; it was perfectly normal for a young person to check their reflection.
Mortimer Quincy calmly put the small, round, pink-rimmed mirror into his drawer. Out of the corner of her eye, Holly Winslow shot him a guilty glance, muttering away as she recited, "When the mulberry leaves are still on the bough, they are so lush and green. Oh, turtledove, I pray, eat not the mulberries! Oh, young maiden, I pray, do not dally with a man..."
"A man's folly can be excused. A woman's folly cannot be excused..." Mortimer Quincy recited, picking up where she left off, all while under Gabe Chaucer's watchful eye.
Holly Winslow was speechless.
Her tongue slipped, and she switched from one poem to another, reciting, "Heaving a long sigh, I wipe away my tears, grieving the many hardships of my people's lives..."
