They talked in the firelight and Pamela said, “I’m not sure that our happiness won’t be the greater because it has come twenty years late. Twenty years ago we would have taken it pretty much as a matter of course. We would have rushed at our happiness and swallowed it whole, so to speak. Now, with twenty lonely, restless years behind us we shall go slowly, and taste every moment and be grateful.”

“I think, said Lewis, “I know something of what Jacob must have felt after he had served all the years and at last took Rachel by the hand…”

-from Penny Plain, pg 210