The silence in the room had width, height, depth, mass and substance.

You might as well learn right now, you two, that the poorest guide you can have in life is what people will say.

She tried to act as though it were nothing to go to the library alone. But her happiness betrayed her. Her smile could not be restrained, and it spread from her tightly pressed mouth, to her round cheeks, almost to the hair ribbons tied in perky bows over her ears.

Was life always like that? she wondered. A game of hide and seek in which you only occasionally found the person you wanted to be?

I'm finished with something, but I'm not beginning anything. That's wrong. When you finish something, you ought always to begin something new.

Come in early, so there'll be time to pop corn,' Mrs. Ray said. If she mentioned popping corn, they always came in early. So she usually mentioned it.

She thought of the library, so shining white and new; the rows and rows of unread books; the bliss of unhurried sojourns there and of going out to a restaurant, alone, to eat.