“Pearl spent the passing days buried so deep in the musty, dusty sorcery tomes that sometimes when she emerged, she spoke in archaic english. "Hast thou a light?" she'd asked him this afternoon when her study room had grown dark with gathering clouds.”

“Had she been in town, the two of them would have spent most of the day together, and she didn't want that. Then again, deep down, it was exactly what she wanted, leaving her more confused that she'd been in years. ”

“She had no idea when she'd stopped loathing him so much.”

“Then he looked by him, and was ware of a damsel that came riding as fast as her horse might gallop upon a fair palfrey. And when she espied that Sir Lanceor was slain, then she made sorrow out of measure, and said, "O Balin ! two bodies hast thou slain and one heart, and two hearts in one body, and two souls thou hast lost.”

“Overhead, a fluff of a cloud was framed with pure golden light from the sun that was hidden from her view. Awed by the sight, she studied the dark nooks and crannies in the body of the cloud within the frame and smiled. Like the cloud, her life was filled with troubles and doubt, as well as joy. At times like this, she needed to remember that God was always behind her, surrounding her with the light of His love, even though she could not see He was there.”

“And yet sometimes she worried about those musty old books were doing to her. Some people majored in English to prepare for law school. Others became journalists.”