the figs."

"Exactly. We have a right to look for the leaves, and to be glad of
them. That is a part of the parable."

"Cousin Delight! Let's talk of real things, and let the parable alone a
minute."

Leslie sprang impulsively to her bureau again, and flung forth the linen
drawer.

"There are my fig-leaves,--some of them; and here are more." She turned,
with a quick movement, to her wardrobe; pulled out and uncovered a
bonnet-box which held a dainty headgear of the new spring fashion, and
then took down from a hook and tossed upon it a silken garment that
fluttered with fresh ribbons. "How much of this outside business is
right, and how much wrong, I should be glad to know? It all takes time
and thoughts; and those are life. How much life must go into the leaves?
That's what puzzles me. I can't do without the things; and I can't be
let to take 'clear comfort' in them, as grandma says, either." She was
on the floor, now, beside her little fineries; her hands clasped
together about one knee, and her face turned up to Cousin Delight's. She
looked as if she half believed herself to be ill-used.

"And clothes are but the first want,--the primitive fig-leaves; the
world is full of other outside business,--as much outside as these,"
pursued Miss Goldthwaite, thoughtfully.

"Everything is outside," said Leslie. "Learning, and behaving, and
going, and doing, and seeing, and hearing, and having. 'It's all a