When prayers were ended, and his Mother had wished him good-night with that long steady look of hers which conveyed no expression of the tenderness that was in her heart, but yet had all the intensity of a blessing.

Oh, I can't describe my home. It is home, and I can't put its charm into words

I don't believe there's a man in Milton who knows how to sit still; and it is a great art.

I would far rather have two or three lilies of the valley gathered for me by a person I like, than the most expensive bouquet that could be bought!

In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses above a certain rent are women. If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his hip, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad. In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not at Cranford.

She freshens me up above a bit. Who'd ha thought that face - as bright and as strong as the angel I dream of - could have known the sorrow she speaks on? I wonder how she'll sin. All on us must sing.

If Mr. Thornton was a fool in the morning, as he assured himself at least twenty times he was, he did not grow much wiser in that afternoon. All that he gained in return for his sixpenny omnibus ride, was a more vivid conviction that there never was, never could be, any one like Margaret; that she did not love him and never would; but that she — no! nor the whole world — should never hinder him from loving her.