E. Nesbit

“ Peter cried a good deal over this. He really was sorry. He would have liked to show his respect for Snubs, whom he had not liked in life, by giving him a magnificent funeral, such as his Mamma had given the canary that had died, with the cats in black bows as chief mourners, but he was shut up in the spare bedroom, and they would not let him out, even for the funeral.
It is dreadful to be shut up in a strange room all alone with your guilty conscience and your confused remorses and exonerations.
When his aunt came to him much later in the day, he had fallen asleep on the floor. ”

“ And as he thought of Snubs, he wept, though Snubs in life had not endeared himself to Peter.
The little girl was very nice to him. She said: "Never mind," and, "I'm sure you didn't mean to," with other kind and consoling things.
Also she told him, when he asked her, that her name was Lucy, and that she was eight years old. He never heard her voice, but one soon becomes expert in the silent language of the lips, especially if one has been very sad and very lonely.
It is impossible to play with a person who sits for ever at a window, but it is easy to play for her. ”

“ When he had been jumped at from behind, had been shaken, and had had his ears boxed so that they burned and hurt even after he was put to bed, he learned that the nettles he had cut down were not nettles at all, but were called Coal-yusses, and were very precious, and that lie was a very naughty little boy. ”

“ It was Jane, he learned from the second cousin long afterwards, who wrote to his mother—she lost her place for it, but mamma saw that she was in the end no loser—and Jane's letter brought mamma back from Switzerland. The letter remarked that "this came hopping to find you well as it leaves me at presint and I got your direction off of the child's letter, and I think it my duty to say that Master Peter do not look above aff the size he did wen he come, an dall pale an dall eyes an dif I was you dear Mam I would take him or not long for this world so no more at presint from your bedent servt." ”