Mystery and disappointment are not absolutely indispensable to the growth of love, but they are, very often, its powerful auxiliaries.

Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape.

She had gained a reputation for beauty, and (which is often another thing) was beautiful.

By the by, who ever knew a man who never read or wrote neither who hadn't got some small back parlour which he would call a study!

Accidents will occur in the best regulated families.

It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour.

"It's nothing," returned Mrs Chick. "It's merely change of weather. We must expect change."