“A woman cannot ever be sure of not being married till she is buried, Mrs. Doctor, dear, and meanwhile I will make a batch of cherry pies.”

“Since you are determined to be married, Miss Cornelia," said Gilbert solemnly, "I shall give you the excellent rules for the management of a husband which my grandmother gave my mother when she married my father.""Well, I reckon I can manage Marshall Elliott," said Miss Cornelia placidly. "But let us hear your rules.""The first one is, catch him.""He's caught. Go on.""The second one is, feed him well.""With enough pie. What next?""The third and fourth are-- keep your eye on him.”

“Dear old world', she murmured, 'you are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you.”

“Her beauty is the least of her dower-and she is the most beautiful woman I've ever known. That laugh of hers! I've angled all summer to evoke that laugh, just for the delight of hearing it.”

“He was one of your wicked, fascinating men. After he got married he left off being fascinating and just kept on being wicked.”

“Valancy herself had never quite relinquished a certain pitiful, shamed, little hope that Romance would come her way yet—never, until this wet, horrible morning, when she wakened to the fact that she was twenty-nine and unsought by any man. Ay, there lay the sting. Valancy did not mind so much being an old maid. After all, she thought, being an old maid couldn’t possibly be as dreadful as being married to an Uncle Wellignton or an Uncle Benjamin, or even an Uncle Herbert. What hurt her was that she had never had a chance to be anything but an old maid.”

“Oh", she thought, "how horrible it is that people have to grow up-and marry-and change!”