“She knew that what Marianne and her mother conjectured one moment, they believed the next: that with them, to wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect.”

“To wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect”

“From a night of more sleep than she had expected, Marianne awoke the next morning to the same consciousness of misery in which she had closed her eyes.”

“She knew what Silas wanted. He wanted her to believe Amos was alive somewhere. Silas wanted help, clinging to his hope. She knew her son. For all her dislike of how much he was like his father, she knew him.”

“A woman of seven and twenty, said Marianne, after pausing a moment, can never hope to feel or inspire affection again.”

“She had hope in her heart but after a while, with each step forward, hope stepped back. And for the first time in months, the first time ever, she began to weep, and as she did she knew that with the retreat of hope her heart had finally caught up with her head. And as each tear spilled over she let them go, she was letting go.”