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?

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

Then he kissed her. Betsy didn't believe in letting boys kiss you. She thought it was silly to be letting first this boy and then that one kiss you, when it didn't mean a thing. But it was wonderful when Joe Willard kissed her. And it did mean a thing.

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.

In silence the three of them looked at the sunset and thought about God.

We'll just have to find more flowers in the spring. That's when they bloom, tra la.

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.