In Ch 32, when Lucinda first sees a Prince Rupert's drop, it has been sent to her father by John Bell, with a description of how it will explode. after they experience its explosion it says:'For Abel Leplastrier had been given, in John Bell's letter. an annotated index to the event he had just witnessed. The glass was by way of being a symbol of weakness and strength; it was a cipher for someone else's heart. It was a confession, an accusation, a cry of pain. It was for this he wept.
Lucinda was moved by something much more simple - grief that such a lovely thing could vanish like a pricked balloon. But her feelings were not unlayered and there was, mixed with that hard slap of disappointment, a deeper more nourishing emotion: wonder.'
