As soon as she was out of the magpie's sight, she crept along the short corridor which led back to the garden.

He needled the air with his baton as though poking a rotisserie ham with a thermometer.

For the next three years, she traveled all over the world with her meditation and yoga teacher, studying Indian philosophy, Sanskrit, yoga, Indian music and cooking.

He forced himself to think about Denver.

She lived in a cream-colored world.

He loved humankind dearly and with all his heart, but he disliked most human beings.

She flickered away, pale and mothlike in the gloom.

Despite his youth and delicate health, he retired to a desert; he practiced severe mortification, tempted continually by the demons expending all their efforts to make him abandon this life of total renouncement.

Hopelessly behind schedule, she frittered away much of the remaining time on an unrelated project.