“They couldn't keep Death out, but while she was in she had to act like a lady.”

“That small world, like the great one out of doors, had the capacity of easily forgetting its dead; and when the cook had said she was a quiet-tempered lady, and the housekeeper had said it was the common lot, and the butler had said who'd have thought it, and the housemaid had said she couldn't hardly believe it, and the footman had said it seemed exactly like a dream, they had quite worn the subject out, and began to think their mourning was wearing rusty too.”

“She knew herself, how she had slowly, over years, become a cat, a wolf, a snake, anything but a girl. How she had wrung out her girlhood like death.”

“Perhaps the old lady had kidnapped Michela, had found her in the park and taken her away, because she had a violent desire for a little girl but couldn't have children. Her womb was defective or else she was unwilling to make a bit of room in it. Just like me, thought Alice.”

“To abandon a child, she had once said to someone, when she thought Cassandra couldn't hear, was an act so cold, so careless, it refused forgiveness.”

“Why couldn't she just come out and say she liked him?Maybe it was because she more than liked him.”