...I think that woman can do a great deal for each other if they will only stop fearing what ‘people will think’ and take a hearty interest in whatev… - Louisa May Alcott

…for action is always easier than quiet waiting.

You love him still and struggle against your love, feeling that it will undo you. He knows this and he will tempt you by every lure he can devise, every deceit he can employ. Sorrow and sin will surely follow if you yield; happiness never can be yours with him; doubt, remorse and self-reproach will kill love, and a time will come when you will find that in gaining a brief joy you have lost your peace forever. Oh, Agatha, be warned in time, do not listen to your own weak heart but to the conscience that nothing can bribe or silence.

An old maid, that’s what I’m to be. A literary spinster, with a pen for a spouse, a family of stories for children, and twenty years hence a morsel of fame, perhaps…