“Whatever time we have," he said, "it will be time enough.”

“Life is always uncertain,'he said with a shrug. 'We cannot let the fear of what might happen stop us living as we choose.”

“My pleasure," he assured me, propping one shoulder against the doorjamb and folding his arms across his chest. "Rather nice change from my normal daily routine. I don't often have comely young maidens throwing themselves at my feet.""Yes, well," I said, coloring, "that won't happen again."He smiled down at me, and after a final handshake I made my departure. I had almost reached the end of the neatly edged walk when he spoke."What a pity," he said, but I don't think I was meant to hear it.”

“I do promise that you will survive this. Faith, my own heart is so scattered round the country now, I marvel that it has the strength each day to keep me standing. But it does,' she said, and drawing in a steady breath she pulled back just enough to raise a hand to wipe Sophia's tears. 'It does. And so will yours.''How can you be so sure?''Because it is a heart, and knows no better.”

“Ever try to hold a butterfly? It can't be done. You damage them," he said. 'As gentle as you try to be, you take the powder from their wings and they won't ever fly the same. It's kinder to let them go.”

“..the fields might fall to fallow and the birds might stop their song awhile; the growing things might die and lie in silence under snow, while through it all the cold sea wore its face of storms and death and sunken hopes...and yet unseen beneath the waves a warmer current ran that, in its time, would bring the spring.”

“If it is true that men have souls that do survive them," he went on, ignoring me, "and if those souls are born again to life, you need not worry that my ghost will haunt you. I'll haunt you in the flesh, instead.”