“The girl was in fact so patient with the old lady that she had not yet noticed that she was never given an opportunity to be patient. She endured her own nature and supposed it to be the burden of another's.”

“For there was never yet philosopher that could endure the toothache patiently.”

“But she was waiting patiently. She no longer believed in talk. It never rescued anything. At seventy she had come to believe in time alone.”

“The child had wanted attention. She had just asked to be noticed. But she was given an assessment. 'What a clever girl!”

“The girl's life had been squandered in the streets, and among the most noisome of the stews and dens of London, but there was something of the woman's original nature left in her still; and when she heard a light step approaching the door opposite to that by which she had entered, and thought of the wide contrast which the small room would in another moment contain, she felt burdened with the sense of her own deep shame: and shrunk as though she could scarcely bear the presence of her with whom she had sought this interview.”

“...a capital patient, as she never died and never got well.”