The book smelled dusty and old but also carried a sweet tang, a hint of something inviting. She opened to the first page and started to read, pronouncing the words in a reverent whisper.

He looked at her, and the clarity of his dark eyes struck her heart with a sensation of a wound touched.

I know they are naught things, but I devour novels.” (p. 57).

I'm not bossy - I just happen to be more capable than most everyone else.

She touched the healthy folds of skin around the baby's neck, wrists, and thighs, the dark lines crying for life made in his forehead, and thought how people start with wrinkles and end with wrinkles, grow into their skin and then live to grow out of it again.

What should I say? That I like him so much it hurts?

Don't beat yourself up," said Charlotte. "True love can be so easily mistaken for other things-friendship, humane concern, indigestion.