Helen Hunt Jackson

“ The Señora Moreno's heart broke within her, when those words passed her lips to her adored Felipe. At the sight, Felipe flung himself on his knees before her; he kissed the aged hands as they lay trembling in her lap. “Mother mia,” he cried, “you will break my heart if you speak like that! Oh, why, why do you command me to do what a man may not? I would die for you, my mother; but how can I see my sister a homeless wanderer in the wilderness?”
“I suppose the man Alessandro has something he calls a home,” said the Señora, regaining herself a little. ”

“ Not until Hetty had yielded this point was there any real joy between her and her husband. As soon as it was yielded, his happiness began to grow and increase, like a plant in spring-time.
"Now you are mine again! Now we will be happy! Life and the world are before us!" he exclaimed.
"But where shall we live, Eben?" asked the practical Hetty.
"Live! live!" he cried, like a boy; "live anywhere, so that we live together!"
"There is always plenty to do, everywhere," said Hetty, reflectively: "we should not have to be idle." ”

“ Freedom to come, go, speak, work, play,--in short, to be one's self,--is to the body more than meat and gold, and to the soul the whole of life.
Just so far as any parent interferes with this freedom of adult children, even in the little things of a single day or a single hour, just so far it is tyranny, and the children are wronged. But just so far as parents help, strengthen, and bestow this freedom on their children, just so far it is justice and kindness, and their relation is cemented into a supreme and unalterable friendship, whose blessedness and whose comfort no words can measure. ”

“ By noon mountains came in sight. Draxy was spellbound. "They are grander than the sea," thought she, "and I never dreamed it; and they are loving, too. I should like to rest my cheek on them."
As she drew nearer and nearer, and saw some tops still white with snow, her heart beat faster, and with a sudden pang almost of conscience-stricken remorse, she exclaimed, "Oh, I shall never, never once miss the sea!"
Elder Kinney had borrowed Eben Hill's horse and wagon to drive over for Draxy. ”

“ Parson Dorrance's hair was white as snow; but his eyes were as keen and dark as in his youth, his step as firm, and his pulse as quick. Long before he dreamed of such a thing, he might have known, if he had taken counsel of his heart, that Mercy was becoming to him the one woman in the world. There was always this peculiarity in Mercy's influence upon all who came to love her. She was so unique and incalculable a person that she made all other women seem by comparison with her monotonous and wearying. Intimacy with her had a subtle flavor to it, by which other flavors were dulled. ”