Frances Hodgson Burnett

Four good things had hap­pened to her, in fact, since she came to Mis­selth­waite Manor. She had felt as if she had un­der­stood a robin and that he had un­der­stood her; she had run in the wind un­til her blood had grown warm; she had been healthily hun­gry for the first time in her life; and she had found out what it was to be sorry for some­one. She was get­ting on.

You can lose a friend in spring­time eas­ier than any other sea­son if you’re too cu­ri­ous.

One knows it some­times when one gets up at the ten­der solemn dawn-time and goes out and stands alone and throws one’s head far back and looks up and up and watches the pale sky slowly chang­ing and flush­ing and mar­velous un­known things hap­pen­ing un­til the East al­most makes one cry out and one’s heart stands still at the strange un­chang­ing majesty of the ris­ing of the sun—which has been hap­pen­ing ev­ery morn­ing for thou­sands and thou­sands and thou­sands of years. One knows it then for a mo­ment or so.

Then some­times the im­mense quiet of the dark blue at night with mil­lions of stars wait­ing and watch­ing makes one sure; and some­times a sound of far-off mu­sic makes it true; and some­times a look in some­one’s eyes.

If you have never had a gar­den, you can­not un­der­stand, and if you have had a gar­den you will know that it would take a whole book to de­scribe all that came to pass there. At first it seemed that green things would never cease push­ing their way through the earth, in the grass, in the beds, even in the crevices of the walls. Then the green things be­gan to show buds and the buds be­gan to un­furl and show color, ev­ery shade of blue, ev­ery shade of pur­ple, ev­ery tint and hue of crim­son. In its happy days flow­ers had been tucked away into ev­ery inch and hole and cor­ner.

Of course this was the wrong Magic—to be­gin by say­ing “too late.”

Mary thought his black dew­drop eyes gazed at her with great cu­rios­ity. It re­ally seemed as if he were find­ing out all about her. The queer feel­ing in her heart in­creased.

It made her think that it was cu­ri­ous how much nicer a per­son looked when he smiled. She had not thought of it be­fore.

“Does tha’ want to see him?” asked Martha sud­denly, she had looked so pleased.
“Yes, I do. I never saw a boy foxes and crows loved. I want to see him very much.”

she was the most dis­agree­able-look­ing child ever seen