DEDICATION: TO RUTH VANDE KIEFT

Toward the end of her career she bought a home in Silver Spring, Maryland, where she hoped to enjoy retirement with her niece Marjorie; but, stricken with cancer, she moved sooner than expected. The four days I spent with her in her tiny apartment in New York were devoted mostly to vigorous debate about my manuscript, especially my feminist approach and my linking of Welty with the gothic. Some of us were also honored by a final bequest form Ruth's personal library: autographed first editions.