but is convinced it is all for the best. Well, let her continue
in her dreary beliefs; she has no garden to teach her the beauty and
the happiness of holiness, nor does she in the least desire to possess one;
her convictions have the sad gray colouring of the dingy streets
and houses she lives amongst--the sad colour of humanity in masses.
Submission to what people call their "lot" is simply ignoble.
If your lot makes you cry and be wretched, get rid of it and take another;
strike out for yourself; don't listen to the shrieks of your relations,
to their gibes or their entreaties; don't let your own microscopic
set prescribe your goings-out and comings-in; don't be afraid
of public opinion in the shape of the neighbour in the next house,
when all the world is before you new and shining, and everything
is possible, if you will only be energetic and independent and seize
opportunity by the scruff of the neck.

"To hear you talk," said Irais, "no one would ever imagine
that you dream away your days in a garden with a book, and that you
never in your life seized anything by the scruff of its neck.
And what is scruff? I hope I have not got any on me."
And she craned her neck before the glass.

She and Minora were going to help me decorate the trees,
but very soon Irais wandered off to the piano, and Minora was tired
and took up a book; so I called in Miss Jones and the babies--
it was Miss Jones's last public appearance, as I shall relate--
and after working for the best part of two days they were finished,
and looked like lovely ladies in widespreading, sparkling petticoats,
holding up their skirts with glittering fingers.
Minora wrote a long description of them for a chapter of her
book which is headed Noel,--I saw that much, because she left