A real Christmas baby was not to be lightly named.

To let blessed babies go dangling and dawdling without names, for months and months, was enough to ruin them for life.

Why is it that the people with whom one loves to be silent are also the very ones with whom one loves to talk?

It is very funny, but you do not always have to see people to love them. Just think about it, and see if it isn't so.

The soul grows into lovely habits as easily as into ugly ones, and the moment a life begins to blossom into beautiful words and deeds, that moment a new standard of conduct is established, and your eager neighbors look to you for a continuous manifestation of the good cheer, the sympathy, the ready wit, the comradeship, or the inspiration, you once showed yourself capable of. Bear figs for a season or two, and the world outside the orchard is very unwilling you should bear thistles.

When, all at once, you find you have something precious you only dimly suspected was to be yours, you almost wish it hadn't come so soon.

Father doesn't think very sudden, but he thinks awful strong.