How much do they be paying you?" he asked mellowly. "The usual salary. A little more than they think I'm worth and a little less than I think I'm worth.

...the reading, the observing, the living from day to day. It was something that had been born into her and her only - the something different from anyone else in the two families. It was what God or whatever is His equivalent puts into each soul that is given life - the one different thing such as that which makes no two fingerprints on the face of the earth alike.

Well' Francie decided, 'I guess the thing that is giving me this headache is life - and nothing else but'.

From that moment on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again.

'Dear God,' she prayed, 'let me be something every minute of every hour of my life.'

It is a good thing to learn the truth one's self. To first believe with all your heart, and then not to believe, is good too. It fattens the emotions and makes them to stretch.

Those were the Rommely women: Mary, the mother, Evy, Sissy, and Katie, her daughters, and Francie, who would grow up to be a Rommely woman even though her name was Nolan. They were all slender, frail creatures with wondering eyes and soft fluttery voices. But they were made out of thin invisible steel.