You already know: Andrea and Tasneem can be like peanut and butter, pepper and mint, Kool and Aid, yin and yang. What comes natural to one is work for the other. What is your instinct, or your assignment? Is it to face life summoning sweet gentility? Or cruising through it with stern focus?

Today's story, by one of our foremost story contributors, Edith Wharton, has been the subject of scores of critical analyses and touches on numerous themes such as motherhood, aging, the accuracy of memory, and the search for truth, to name just a few.

A king has heard of a princess who might be a suitable match for one as magnificent as himself. So he enlists the aid of seven brothers, all named Simon, and all with – shall we say, unusual? – skills.

A king vowed to have someone stand sentry over his daughter’s body every might for a year – but the sentries are always gone in the morning. Is there anyone who will last the whole night?