Lucy Maud Montgomery

“ But why should she hide them? They were as pure and beautiful as herself. Eric smiled back at her with equal frankness.
"I should like it more than I can say, and I shall be sure to come to-morrow evening if it is fine. But if it is at all damp or unpleasant you must not come. In that case another evening will do. And now won't you give me some flowers?"
She nodded, with another little smile, and began to pick some of the June lilies, carefully selecting the most perfect among them. He watched her lithe, graceful motions with delight; every movement seemed poetry itself. ”

“ There is always plenty for me to do, helping Aunt Janet about the house. I can do a great many things"--she glanced up at him with a pretty pride as her flying pencil traced the words. "I can cook and sew. Aunt Janet says I am a very good housekeeper, and she does not praise people very often or very much. And then, when I am not helping her, I have my dear, dear violin. That is all the company I want. But I like to read and hear of the big world so far away and the people who live there and the things that are done. It must be a very wonderful place." ”

“ When she came to him, radiant, her hands full of the lilies, a couplet from a favourite poem darted into his head--
"A blossom vermeil white That lightly breaks a faded flower sheath, Here, by God's rood, is the one maid for me." The next moment he was angry with himself for his folly. She was, after all, nothing but a child--and a child set apart from her fellow creatures by her sad defect. ”