Olive Higgins Prouty

“ Her little girl became a dream again, an ideal, a picture on ivory. "There were her boys." That is what people said in way of comfort. Yes, yes. Of course. Thank heaven she had her boys! But, oh, her boys must be made stalwart and bold, strong and tough-muscled. The image she would have modeled out of her bit of little-girl clay was to have been as graceful as poetry, as delicate as violin music, as perfect in detail, as fine and exquisite as an etching.
After Carol died, Helen Morrison offered her services to a certain charitable institution for working-girls in New York City. ”

“ What strength and confidence and beauty would that weak little body have attained? What strength and confidence and beauty would that spark of fine intelligence, shining so steadily in her baby's face, have kindled under her constant caring and tending? ”

“ Even before she thought seriously about marriage, she built air-castles about that little dream-girl of hers. She should have all the joys and delights which her own childhood had lacked. She should be surrounded, day and night, by feminine tenderness and comprehension. ”

“ When that little girl was born, Helen Morrison had been married several years. She had already had two boys—fine sturdy specimens—but soldier-material, American business-man stuff. When a little girl, a little feminine creature of her own, was placed in the curve of Helen Morrison's arm, she could not speak for joy. ”

“ She should have a friend always waiting for her at home, to play with her, or to work with her, to walk and talk with her, or to love pretty clothes with her, or pity wounded bugs with her, or to hold hands with her when it "thundered and lightened." ”