and having. In myself, am I good for any more, after all? Or only--a
green fig-tree in the sunshine?"

Why, with that word, did it all flash together for her, as a connected
thing? Her talk that morning, many weeks ago, that had seemed to ramble
so from one irrelevant matter to another,--from the parable to her
fancy-traveling, the scenes and pleasures she had made for herself,
wondering if the real would ever come; to the linen-drawer, representing
her little feminine absorptions and interests; and back to the fig-tree
again, ending with that word,--"the real living is the urging toward the
fruit"? Her day's journey, and the hints of life--narrowed, suffering,
working--that had come to her, each with its problem? Marmaduke Wharne's
indignant protest against people who "did not know their daily bread,"
and his insistence upon the _two_ things for human creatures to do: the
_receiving_ and the giving; the taking from God, in the sunshine, to
grow; the ripening into generous uses for others,--was it all one, and
did it define the whole, and was it identical, in the broadest and
highest, with that sublime double command whereon "hang the law and the
prophets"?

Something like this passed into her mind and soul, brightening there,
like the morning. It seemed, in that glimpse, so clear and
gracious,--the truth that had been puzzling her.

Easy, beautiful summer work: only to be shone upon; to lift up one's
branching life, and be--reverently--glad; to grow sweet and helpful and
good-giving, in one's turn,--could she not begin to do that? Perhaps--by
ever so little; the fruit might be but a berry, yet it might be fair and
full, after its kind; and at least some little bird might be the better
for it. All around her, too, the life of the world that had so troubled