Our Final Four

Well, well, well. When I had finished totting up the votes this morning, my pencil trailed down the list, putting stars next to the winners from each bracket. In my shock, I am channelling an RDD's grandmama. I am setting eyes on a silver metallic trouser suit draping the fashionably thin form of my youngest grandson's date--and my eyebrows are high and surprised.

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It wasn't that the old lady was hopelessly out of step (never that). It was that glitter seemed to get everywhere, even though the Vogue model limited herself to eating one celery stick and complaining loudly about girls in chiffon. Wim and Nel would be furious when they had to scrub off her seat.

Highlighted in soft pink (the color worn by that the plain little British nurse that my oldest grandson, the Professor Baron, can't keep his eyes off of) are the winners:

A) The Barfing on His Brogues Bracket:

Dearest Love vs.

Caroline's Waterloo 

B) The Handful of A Levels Bracket:

A Gentle Awakening vs.

Tabitha By Moonlight

C) The Hocked Locket Bracket:

Henrietta's Own Castle vs.

Dearest Mary Jane

D) The Imperiled Poppets Bracket:

Cassandra By Chance vs.

The Promise of Happiness

Look that over and tell me there haven't been a couple of upsets. My own personal tragedy is the loss of Caroline's Waterloo which always makes it into my top two or three. Caro is such a wonderful heroine and I love the set-up enormously. 

None of the votes were lop-sided--each coming down to a couple of votes either way. For that last bracket, I was holding my breath the whole time.

I'd like to do something a little different going into The Final Four.  The last books are sure to have passionate partisans and I'm going to hop on the Facebook page and solicit some Betties for whom individual books are the most favorite to write up a paragraph or two about them. When I've got those all turned in, we'll resume our voting and I'm not going to ask for trouble by mixing it up. The Barfing on His Brogues Bracket will go up against The Handful of A Levels Bracket and so on.

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Betty Franscisca considered the tin oven and began to write out her impassioned thoughts.
"Baking bread is a chancy business in any circumstance but the plucky Henrietta..."