September had never been betrayed before. She did not even know what to call the feeling in her chest, so bitter and sour. Poor child. There is always a first time, and it is never the last time.

For there are two kinds of forgiveness in the world: the one you practice because everything really is all right, and what went before is mended. The other kind of forgiveness you practice because someone needs desperately to be forgiven, or because you need just as badly to forgive them, for a heart can grab hold of old wounds and go sour as milk over them.

And if they thought her aimless, if they thought her a bit mad, let them. It meant they left her alone. Marya was not aimless, anyway. She was thinking.

Temptation likes best those who think they have a natural immunity, for it may laugh all the harder when they succumb.

... but as has been said, September read often, and liked it best when words did not pretend to be simple, but put on their full armor and rode out with colors flying.

That stirring which had fluttered in her on first glimpsing the sea—that stirring landlocked children know so well—moved in her now, with the golden stars over head, and the green fireflies glinting on the wooded shore. She carefully unfolded the stirring that she had so tightly packed away. It billowed out like a sail, and she laughed, despite herself, despite hunger and hard things ahead.

Humanity lived many years and ruled the earth, sometimes wisely, sometimes well, but mostly neither.