Mary Roberts Rinehart

“ You may have borne the child—I don't deny it, but he's mine by every law of God. While you've been sleeping your drunken sleep of nights, I've been hanging over that boy's little bed, listening to his every breath. While you've been dancing and carousing and flirting through life, I've been teaching that boy his prayers and listening to his primer. ”

“ Jim got up pettishly and drew on her gloves.
“That's another trip for me,” she said, shaking out her skirts; but Miss Maria was on her feet, staring at the squire with blazing eyes.
“You're crazy, Ira Andrews!” she stormed, a spot of indignant red in either cheek. “If he goes to the lockup I go too, and we neither of us go if you haven't got the stove put up yet. The idea of a man with eleven children at home putting a seven-year-old boy in that damp, cold place over night! Sammy has a cold now. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” ”

“ THE big doll in Miss Maria's shop window had been for years the model after which the village infants were clothed. When Miss Maria's baby wore thread lace, so also did every baby in Moon Center. When blind embroidery became the fashion, the doll wore its stiffened glories smilingly, although the other infants shouted lusty rebellion. And when everything gave way to hem-stitched flounces, according to the agent who made semi-quarterly visits im a mud-spattered buggy, the baby in the window blossomed out in a complete hem-stitched outfit, with tiny tucks and feather-stitching. ”