Eleanor H. Porter

“ And I am afraid you have thought sometimes we were pretty selfish and thoughtless, to let you take all the burden and care off our shoulders, for that's exactly what you have done all these years, dear Sister. ”

“ Telegraph me the date of your first concert and I'll be there and blister my hands with the biggest clap the old hall (wherever it is) ever heard. And, while I'm about it, just let me say that I don't know of any one who deserves success more than you. ”

“ The Lorings were very much astonished to have Sister Sue tell them she was going back to Gilmoreville right away. They were more astonished when she told them that she had decided, after all, not to go on with her music just at present.
Mr. Loring only smiled and said a polite something that meant nothing, and let the matter pass. But Mrs. Loring was not so easily satisfied. She seized the first opportunity, when they were alone together, to induce the girl to tell her more about it. ”

“ You know you never miss the water till the well runs dry, and I suppose we never should have known what a big place Sister Sue filled in our lives if she just had n't walked out and left the big gaping hole! But we shall know it now, all right! And I was thinking only the other day, why! just what you did for Father was wonderful! To say nothing of all the watchful care you had of us! And I do hope that now you can get a little reward. And you will get it in your music. ”

“ You don't understand. I am going to live with Gordon and May. That is why I came back, Mr. Kendall. They need me—so much."
"They need you! Well, how about my needing you?" It was unmistakably the old Donald Kendall who said this. The imperious, not-in-the-habit-of-being-denied Donald Kendall. So much so that Sister Sue, even perturbed and distressed as she was, caught herself thinking that, after all, the Beth who sang or the Helen who painted had not made so thorough a job of it. ”

“ An' ye did like them cookies, Donald Kendall! Now, come back an' sit down."
With a short laugh and a gesture of angry resignation, the man turned and came back to his chair.
"Mrs. Preston, you are incorrigible. I don't know why, I am sure, that I come back or why I have listened to you even as long as I have. I've been on the point of leaving a dozen times in the last five minutes," he finished crossly.
"I know why ye come back," nodded the little old lady, her shrewd eyes on his face; "ye ain't the big man now—the big fiddler that everybody claps—an' yells at. ”