No Place Like Home by Hesba Stretton

IT was a solemn and almost speechless procession that marched through the midnight woods, waking up the sleeping birds in their nests, and frightening timid rabbits in their burrows. The moon shone down from the cloudless sky, filling the open spaces with a white light, but deepening the shadows where the hazel bushes grew thickest.

Elsie walked beside Ishmael with her hand in his; remembering, oh! how keenly, that day five years ago, which had laid the foundation-stone of all his sorrow. But beyond the present sadness there shone a bright hope in the future, though he could not at this moment catch its light. Only a few days, and she and her mother were going to sail for America; and now, when Ishmael had seen his mother's feeble worn-out body laid in the old churchyard, he would be free to go with them, and begin his new life in a new country.