"Those grown old, who have had the youth bled from them by the jagged edged winds of winter, know sorrowfully that Indian summer is a sham to be met with hard-eyed cynicism. But the young wait anxiously, scanning the chill autumn skies for a sign of her coming. And sometimes the old, against all the warnings of better judgment, wait with the young and hopeful, their tired, inner eyes turned heavenward to seek the first traces of a false softening." Book 1, Chap. 1, p. 3

"If I can teach something to one child, if I can awaken in only one child a sense of beauty, a joy in truth, an admission of ignorance and a thirst for knowledge, then I am fulfilled. One child, thought Miss Thornton . . . and her mind fastened with love on Allison MacKenzie." Book 1, Chap. 2, p. 14

"Slowly, a wonderful feeling of being the only living person in...