There were days when she almost prayed that the brooding suspense would assume a definite shape, that the blow would fall, the crash come, and ruin envelop them all.

Any visible fact would be better than this impending horror of the imagination--this silent dread so much worse than any reality of failure--which encompassed them with the impalpable thickness and darkness of a cloud.
"Then I can't help my mother even if it's a matter of life and death ?" she asked.
"I don't believe it's as bad as that, Gabriella.

Ten chances to one the rest of the winter will be mild, and she would find Florida too depressing.

You never can tell about doctors, you know.

It's their business to make trouble.