“I had staked all on Gussie making a favourable impression on his hostess, basing my confidence on the fact that he was one of those timid, obsequious, teacup-passing, thin-bread- and-butter-offering, yes-men whom women of my Aunt Dahlia's type nearly always like at first sight.”

“This was not Aunt Dahlia, my good and kindly aunt, but my Aunt Agatha, the one who chews broken bottles and kills rats with her teeth.”

“I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”

“I was confided to your loyalty and accepted by your treason; you offer my death to those to whom you had promised my life. Do you know who it is you are destroying here? It is yourself.”

“Faith in the biblical sense is substantive, based on the knowledge that the One in whom that faith is placed has proven that He is worthy of that trust. In its essence, faith is a confidence in the person of Jesus Christ and in His power, so that even when His power does not serve my end, my confidence in Him remains because of who He is.”

“This is my first . . . ah . . .” “Haunting?” he offered. I snorted. “Yes, this is my first haunting.” “Then I’m flattered.”