Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God's love commits me here, ever this day be at my side, to light, to guard, to rule, to guide. Have mercy on the soul of my father, Patrick Devlin. And if it so be Thy will, let nothing happen to my family, ever again. I am Thy child.

Molly—Mary Loretta—Devlin blessed herself and got up from her knees. She prayed twice a day, morning and night, kneeling beside her bed, sometimes facing the pale pink stuccoed wall, sometimes head down, her face buried in her hands, staring into the soft black wells of her stopped vision. The bed was made up with a cover that once was a diningroom curtain, French goods of azure satin stripes and bands of tightly-woven ecru linen studded with baskets of flowers. Molly loved this cloth because it was the best of its kind, one of the last remnants of the days when her mother and father had money. Now it made of her bed something strict, elegant, and different. Had she had the sight of herself that God in His mercy and wisdom had of her, she would have recognized those qualities as the very ones she wanted for herself.