People were always saying to Margaret, 'Well, Julia sings and Betsy writes. Now what is little Margaret going to do?' Margaret would smile politely, for she was very polite, but privately she stormed to Betsy with flashing eyes, 'I'm not going to do anything. I want to just live. Can't people just live?

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

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

I cannot remember back to a year in which I did not consider myself to be a writer, and the younger I was the bigger that capital 'W.

Good things come, but they're never perfect; are they? You have to twist them into something perfect.

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?

People were always saying to Margaret, 'Well, Julia sings and Betsy writes. Now what is little Margaret going to do?' Margaret would smile politely, for she was very polite, but privately she stormed to Betsy with flashing eyes, 'I'm not going to do anything. I want to just live. Can't people just live?