human hair, probably as a diamond resembles a chunk of granite....

A curious thing has happened. I went to Camilla's box after writing that. Judy[1] was already lying in front of it, unexcited. The angel's head was out from under the feathers, and I thought, with more verbal distinctness than such thoughts commonly take, So here I am, a naturalist of middle years and cold sober, observing a three-inch oviparous mammal with down and wings.

The thing is—she giggled!

Now it might have been only amusement at my appearance, which to her must be enormously gross and comic. But another thought formed unspoken: I am no longer lonely. And her face, hardly bigger than a dime, immediately changed from laughter to a brooding and friendly thoughtfulness.

Judy and Camilla are old friends. Judy seems untroubled by the angel. I have no worries about leaving them alone together.

June 3

I made no entry last night. The angel was talking to me, and when that was finished I drowsed off immediately on a cot which I have moved into the kitchen to be near them.

I had never been strongly impressed by the evidence for extrasensory perception. It is fortunate that my mind was able to accept the novelty, since to the angel it is clearly a matter of course. Her tiny mouth is most expressive, but moves only for that reason and for eating—not for speech. Probably she could speak to her own kind if she wished, but I dare say the sound would be above the range of my hearing as well as my understanding.

Last night after I brought the cot in and was about to finish my puttering bachelor supper, she climbed to the edge of the box and pointed, first at herself and then at the top of the kitchen table. Afraid to let my vast hand take hold of her, I held it out flat and she sat in my palm. Camilla was inclined to fuss, but the angel looked over her shoulder and Camilla subsided, watchful but no longer alarmed.

The table-top is porcelain, and the angel shivered. I folded a towel and spread a silk handkerchief on top of that; the angel sat on this arrangement with apparent comfort, near my face. I was not even bewildered, without realizing why. That doesn't seem possible, does it? But there was a good reason.

She reached me first with visual imagery. How can I make it plain that this had nothing in common with my 

 Prev. P 5/33 next