In the late afternoon the Roman streets which have been deserted since lunch time suddenly fill with people dressed in brilliant colors. The sun, a dull red ball, sinks over St. Peters, filtering red smoky light through the streets. 

Where woods and wall began, she got off the bicycle and wheeled it the rest of the way up the hill, glancing uneasily at the wall. Higher than a man, it was topped by jagged triangles of glass—a clear statement that the De Rogiets had no use for intruders. 

If it looked like a good long rain, Jan would set the basket inside the door and fly back out and down to the summerhouse under the big splashing drops before anyone had time to say come back or take your sweater

During the eleven years that Andrev Andraukov and Dr. Karl Locke worked together they evolved a curious manner of conversation, curious first of all because it was invariably opened and closed by the professor, and second because of its disconnected character. 

Harry and Allen left the keyhole and tip-toed down the hall to where their shoes were. Neither one said anything until they reached the foot of the curving staircase and sat down to put their shoes back on. Then the older one, who was eleven, spoke.

No, no, said Miss Etta, putting three loops and a scallop to centre front, no no no, said Miss Etta, crossing behind and slipping two, no no, don’t tell me she didm’t mean it. Don't try to tell me she didn’t mean it, because I know she did, and she began the second row.

Markle followed Ernie down the ladder to the liberty launch and they elbowed through their crowded shipmates to the starboard combing. 

Of late I had gotten less and less talkative and would sit for hours on a park bench, staring. But afterwards, when asked what I had seen, I didn’t know. They took me to the mountains, all in vain, and after a series of disheartening proposals packed me off to the Low Countries.

A light breeze had sprung up, noticeable only as a kind of touch on the temples, and by the shifting shadows of the camphor trees. The voices of the children playing in the grove sounded and echoed from far away in the still evening. 

Dr. Eichner was a man of remarkable bearing, slightly above six feet, slender, with well set shoulders and a magnificently grey, patrician head. He stood on the clinic’s shaded front veranda, waiting for his car to be sent around.