In very good condition: dust jacket has light wear. ISBN 1562926160
The Quiet Little Woman is a novella about an orphan named Patty who is industrious, honest, quiet, and plain. She sees all the pretty, cheery girls find homes, but her turn never comes until one day, a family returns a girl they had taken on trial and takes Patty instead. She isn't really adopted as part of the family, but is more of a servant who gets to live in the house with them. They are kind to her in a thoughtless, forgetful fashion, assuming that because she knows she's not really part of the family, she doesn't want to be included in anything. But they have a maiden aunt who sees Patty's loneliness and begins to exchange letters with her. Eventually the whole family learns to value Patty when they come to realize she has as many feelings and emotional needs as they do. Tilly's Christmas is about a poor little girl who find a sick bird on the way home and nurses it back to health even though her playmates laugh at her for showing compassion to a creature that can't repay her in any way. Her rich old neighbor overhears her defense of doing good for goodness' sake and takes Tilly and her mother under his wing because he realizes he should do the same. Rosa's Tale is about a horse that gains the ability to talk on Christmas Eve, per the old folktales, and tells her life story to the young woman who came out to give her an apple as a Christmas treat.
