“A word in earnest is as good as a speech.”

“He spoke in hard and angry earnest, if a man ever did," replied the girl, shaking her head. "He is an earnest man when his hatred is up. I know many who do worse things; but I'd rather listen to them all a dozen times, than to that Monks once.”

“She watched his face as earnestly as he watched the river. But, in the intensity of her look there was a touch of dread or horror.”

“I feel an earnest and humble desire, and shall do till I die, to increase the stock of harmless cheerfulness.”

“Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism, are all very good words for the lips.”

“You are a young man," she said, nodding. "Take a word of advice, even from three foot nothing. Try not to associate bodily defects with mental, my good friend, except for a solid reason.”

“In truth she is not a hard lady naturally, and the time has been when the sight of the venerable figure suing to her with such strong earnestness would have moved her to great compassion. But so long accustomed to suppress emotion and keep down reality, so long schooled for her own purposes in that destructive school which shuts up the natural feelings of the heart like flies in amber and spreads one uniform and dreary gloss over the good and bad, the feeling and the unfeeling, the sensible and the senseless, she had subdued even her wonder until now.”