The Lord always appears a heap nearer to the dead, somehow, than He does to the livin', and I shouldn't be amazed to find it less lonely than life after I'm once safely settled." "You've seen so many die that you've grown used to it," said Molly through her tears.
For a moment he gazed wistfully at the apple boughs, while his face darkened, as if he were watching a procession of shadows.

In his seventy years he had gained a spiritual insight which penetrated the visible body of things in search of the truth beneath the ever-changing appearance.

There are a few blameless yet suffering beings on whom nature has conferred a simple wisdom of the heart which contains a profounder understanding of life than the wisdom of the mind can grasp--and Reuben was one of these.

Sorrow had sweetened in his soul until it had turned at last into sympathy.
"I've seen 'em come an' go like the flakes of light out yonder in the orchard," he answered almost in a whisper.

"Young an' old, glad an' sorry, I've seen 'em go--an' never one among 'em but showed in thar face when 'twas over that 'twas the best thing had ever happened.