One day" she told them, "when you have retired, you will go to live with a family who will love you for your beauty and nothing more, and if you're very lucky there will be children, and the children will pet you and pet you and pet you. Ossin has a list, I think, of such children; he sends his hunting-staff out during the months they are not needed for that work, to look for them, and add names to the list." The fleethounds stared back at her with their enormous dark liquid eyes, and believed every word.

But it was equally clear to her that this was her fate, that she had called its name and it had come to her, and she could do nothing now but own it.

...there remained a strange formality between them, and her pleasure in his presence felt too much like missing him had felt during the last week.

She poured the water, arranged some bread near enough the embers to scorch but not catch fire, and looked up at Little John. She was so accustomed to his step, to his bulk, that it took a moment to notice his face; and when she did . . . It was, she thought, rather like the moment it took to realize one had cut one's finger as one stared dumbly at the first drop of blood on the knife-blade. You know it is going to hurt quite a lot in a minute.

I wondered what you'd have on the side with a plate of Deep Fried Anxiety. Pickles? Coleslaw? Potato-strychnine mash?

Cigars should be like onions," she said, unfastening the catch and pushing back the pane. "Either the whole company does, or the whole company does not.

But I'm going to try to tell the truth. Except for the parts I'm leav­ing out, because there's still stuff I'm just not going to tell you. Get used to it.