Meanwhile, if these hours be dark at least do not let us sit deedless, like fools and fine gentlemen, thinking the common toil not good enough for us and beaten by the muddle; but rather let us work like good fellows trying by some dim candlelight to set our workshop ready against to-morrow’s daylight. William Morris.

In the bosom of a family, nothing can be hidden. One might wish, when things are bad, to suffer unobserved, but in a family there is no chance of that.

Youth and enthusiasm can be fatiguing to those who have lost both.

Why did some people have so much? And yet, compared with Lily, she herself must seem almost rich. Was it all like this? Did every one look with envy at the one above? Funny. And funny, too, that the thought of someone else being worse off than you were yourself should make you feel more cheerful.

She had learnt to wait for the changes and the help that life brings. Life is like the sea, sometimes you are in the trough of the wave, sometimes on the crest. When you are in the trough, you wait for the crest, and always, trough or crest, a mysterious tide bears you forward to an unseen, but certain shore. In.

It was awful to have no one belonging to you, and to belong to no one.

She had never thought she would let a daughter of hers go away like this. But what could she do? Children grew up; they pleased themselves; they grew in power to go their own ways as you diminished in power to prevent them.

Each soul has its solace.

Shyness in the young may be charming to look at but is painful to the one who suffers it.

Good cooking is a form of benevolence. Molly gladly sacrificed a fine afternoon to give pleasure by a cake at tea-time. She would lay her afternoon and fresh air on the table with the cake and be rewarded by the glow of pleasure she felt when they enjoyed it.