“Upon my word," thought Mrs. Fisher, "the way one pretty face can turn a delightful man into an idiot is past all patience.”

“He thought her delightful, - freckles, picnic-untidiness and all.”

“Love is not a thing you can pick up and throw into the gutter and pick up again as the fancy takes you. I am a person, very unfortunately for you, with a quite peculiar dread of thrusting myself or my affections on any one, of in any way outstaying my welcome. The man I would love would be the man I could trust to love me for ever. I do not trust you. I did outstay my welcome once. I did get thrown into the gutter, and came near drowning in that sordid place.”

“What business, said Priscilla's look more plainly than any words, what business had people to walk into other people's cottages in such a manner? She stood quite still, and scrutinized Mrs. Morrison with the questioning expression she used to find so effective in Kunitz days when confronted by a person inclined to forget which, exactly, was his proper place. But Mrs. Morrison knew nothing of Kunitz, and the look lost half its potency without its impressive background. Besides, the lady was not one to notice things so slight as looks; to keep her in her proper place you would have needed sledge-hammers.”

“Thoreau has been my companion for some days past, it having struck me asmore appropriate to bring him out to a pond than to read him, as washitherto my habit, on Sunday mornings in the garden. He is a person wholoves the open air, and will refuse to give you much pleasure if you tryto read him amid the pomp and circumstance of upholstery; but out in thesun, and especially by this pond, he is delightful, and we spend thehappiest hours together, he making statements, and I either agreeingheartily, or just laughing and reserving my opinion till I shall havemore ripely considered the thing.”

“You are all the happiness," he said, with an energy of conviction astonishing at half-past nine in the morning, "and all the music, and all the colour, and all the fragrance there is in the world.”

“To think that you dared—to think that my—my noble boy—""He wasn't very noble. Mothers don't ever really know their sons, I think.""Shameless girl!" cried Mrs. Morrison, so loud, so completely beside herself, that Priscilla hastily rang her bell... "Open the door for this lady," she said to Annalise, who appeared with a marvellous promptitude; and as Mrs. Morrison still stood her ground and refused to see either Annalise or the door Priscilla ended the interview by walking out herself, with great dignity, into the bathroom.”