That is the age she is, for better or for worse, on this world.

But it was not so, on another world.

Now let her note that this document is composed with a certain guarded anonymity. The name she bore is, of course, unimportant, and certainly so now, on this world, and it might have been any name, perhaps yours or another’s. So we will not give her a name, not until later, when one was given to her. Too, in accordance with the admonitions to which she has been subjected, she will attempt to conceal the names of institutions, and references to streets, and localities, museums, theaters, parks, shops and boulevards, and such things, which might serve to identify or reveal, even tentatively or remotely, the venue of this story’s beginning. The purpose of this injunction is not altogether clear to her, as it seems to her that they have the power to come and go, and do, much as they please. Who could stop them? But certainly she will honor it in detail. Doubtless they have their reasons. Perhaps they do not wish you to be on your guard. She does not know. What difference would it make, if you were on your guard? What difference would it have made, had she been on her guard? Would anything, truly, have been different? Perhaps they do not wish you to know the areas, or locales, in which they work. But it is her impression that their doings, their functions or operations, if you prefer, are not limited to a particular city or town, or even nation, or hemisphere, or season, or year. There seem many reasons for supposing that. But she knows, actually, very little of these things. She, and those like her, are commonly little informed, commonly kept much in ignorance. Such things are not their concerns. Their concerns are otherwise, and are commonly supposed, they are told, to be more than ample to occupy their time and attention.