Cassandra's grandmother smiled then, only it wasn't a happy smile. Cassandra thought she knew how it felt to smile like that. She often did so herself when her mother promised her something she really wanted but knew might not happen.

After all, it's the librarian's sworn purpose to bring books together with their one true reader.

Oh, there was harm indeed for a young lady flattered by the brief attentions of a handsome man.

Lil had always believed that a person's duty was to make the best of the hand they were dealt. No use wondering what might have been, she used to say, all that matters is what is.

Oh, Grey, no one really likes keeping secrets. The only thing that makes a secret fun is knowing that you weren't supposed to tell it.

Hope, how she had grown to hate the word. It was an insideious seed planted inside a person's soul, surviving covertly on little tending, then flowering so spectacularly that none could help but cherish it.

Curiosity might have killed the cat, but little girls usually fared much better.