“There had been a rare afternoon when Judith had invited Kit to go with some other girls of the town to pick flowers and picnic along the shore of the river. At the last moment Kit had turned back to Mercy and cried impulsively, "Oh, if only you could go, too, Mercy! How can you bear it, always staying behind?"
And Mercy had answered serenely, 'Oh, I settled that a long time ago. I remember it very well. Father had carried me to the doorstep, and I sat there watching the children playing a game in the road. I thought of all the things I would never be able to do. Since then I've just never thought much about it.”
―
Elizabeth George Speare,
The Witch of Blackbird Pond