In Chapter 11 of Mistress Pat, Pat is devastated by the fire at Silver Bush

All the flower clumps near the house had been burned . . . Judy’s bleeding-heart . . . the southernwood . . . the white lilac. The lawn itself looked like an old yellow blanket. Beyond stretched a russet land of shadows and lonely furrows and woods that stirred faintly in their dreams. Far away, in the direction of Silverbridge, Angus Macaulay must have been working in his forge for she could hear the ring of his anvil, faintly clear, as if some goblin forger were at work among the hills.

“I suppose I can teach,” thought Pat. “I have my old licence. They won’t need me at the Bay Shore . . . they’ve had Anna Palmer there for years to help and she’ll stay on. But I can’t build up a new life . . . I’m too tired. I’ll just go on existing . . . withering into unimportance . . . drifting from one place to another . . . rootless . . . living in houses I hate . . . oh, can it be I standing here looking at the place where Silver Bush was? . . . that old Bible verse . . . ‘it shall be a heap forever . . . it shall not be built again’ . . . I wish that were true . . . I wish no house could ever be built here again . . . it will be a desecration. Oh, if I could only wake up and find it all a dream!”

Deuteronomy 13:16
King James Bible

And thou shalt gather all the spoil of it into the midst of the street thereof, and shalt burn with fire the city, and all the spoil thereof every whit, for the LORD thy God: and it shall be an heap for ever; it shall not be built again.