Constance Fenimore Woolson

“ At nine o'clock Tom and Gem went to bed, and at half-past nine, Sibyl closed the organ and said "good-night;" Aunt Faith was left with Bessie and Hugh, who joined her on the broad-cushioned window-seat and looked out with her into the night. "I like the darkness of a summer night," said Hugh; "how bright the stars are!"
"We do not know where heaven is," said Aunt Faith, "but it is a natural thought that our loved and lost are 'beyond the stars.' We too shall go there some day. How beautiful and happy our life will be, there! How precious the certainty of our hope!" ”

“ Deception is sometimes a blessing," said Bessie. At this point a singular noise was heard outside the door; then another, and still another.
"What can that be?" said Hugh, opening the door; "Gem, what are you doing?"
"Oh, Hugh, don't make any noise," said Gem, in a whisper.
"I am not making any noise. It is you with your shovels. What are you doing with them?" asked Hugh, laughing.
"Oh, Hugh, please don't tell! but Tom and the B. B.'s are making an underground shanty, and they sent me for all the shovels, and I got all I could find, and now I can't carry them," said Gem dolefully. ”

“ Are not the dead with their great Creator? Can we not trust them to Him? Why, when I look up into this blue sky, I can almost see them there. My mother,—how often I think of her; not with sadness, always with pleasure, and a bright anticipation of meeting her again. Bessie, if I should die, you must not mourn for me. Think of me as gone into another world where sooner or later you will come too."
"Why do you say such things, Hugh?" said Bessie, laying down her brush with her eyes full of tears.
"Because they happened to come into my mind, I suppose. Why, you are not crying! Nonsense, Brownie! ”