Second paragraph of third chapter:

We both bounced into the parlour in a highly abrupt and undignified manner. My mother sat by the open window laughing and fanning herself. Pesca was one of her especial favourites and his wildest eccentricities were always pardonable in her eyes. Poor dear soul! from the first moment when she found out that the little Professor was deeply and gratefully attached to her son, she opened her heart to him unreservedly, and took all his puzzling foreign peculiarities for granted, without so much as attempting to understand any one of them.

I have to say that I found the 646 pages of this a real slog. There’s some good sæva indignatio at the legal status of women in Victorian society, but the plot is pretty implausible and the investigation process, not much less so; the central mystery is not interesting enough to compensate for the blandness of the characters (or the length of the book). Wildly overrated, I fear, but you can get it here. I very much preferred Sarah Waters’ Fingersmith, which is apparently a reflection of The Woman in White for modern times.

This was my top unread book acquired last year, my top book not yet blogged here and my top non-genre book. Next on all three of those lists is Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh.