Betsy returned to her chair, took off her coat and hat, opened her book and forgot the world again.

Was life always like that? she wondered. A game of hide and seek in which you only occasionally found the person you wanted to be?

You have two numbers in your age when you are ten. It's the beginning of growing up.

The wastes of snow on the hill were ghostly in the moonlight. The stars were piercingly bright.

You might as well learn right now, you two, that the poorest guide you can have in life is what people will say.

One strain could call up the quivering expectancy of Christmas Eve, childhood, joy and sadness, the lonely wonder of a star

She thought of the library, so shining white and new; the rows and rows of unread books; the bliss of unhurried sojourns there and of going out to a restaurant, alone, to eat.