Dinah Craik

“ John himself, quite distinct from that which lay so still before me; beautiful as nothing but death can be, younger much than he had looked this very morning—younger by twenty years.
Farewell, John! Farewell, my more than brother! It is but for a little while.
As I sat, thinking how peacefully the hands lay, clasped together still, how sweet was the expression of the close mouth, and what a strange shadowy likeness the whole face bore to Muriel's little face, which I had seen resting in the same deep rest on the same pillow; some one touched me. It was Mrs. Halifax. ”

“ Thus, almost every evening, we used to spend an hour or more, pacing up and down, or sitting in that little hollow under the brow of the Flat, where, as from the topmost seat of a natural amphitheatre, one could see Rose Cottage and the old well-head where the cattle drank; our own green garden-gate, the dark mass of the beech-wood, and far away beyond that Nunneley Hill, where the sun went down.
There, having walked somewhat less time than usual, for the evening was warm and it had been a fatiguing day, John and I sat down together. ”

“ I told him Edwin had said to-day that some strange tenants were going to make an inn of the old house, and turn the lawn into a bowling- green.
"What a shame! I wish I could prevent it. And yet, perhaps not," he added, after a silence. "Ought we not rather to recognise and submit to the universal law of change? How each in his place is fulfilling his day, and passing away, just as that sun is passing. Only we know not whither he passes; while whither we go we know, and the Way we know—the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." ”