seem to be caught up into the heart of things, when hidden meanings
are revealed, when the soul stretches itself and grows a little.

It was a few minutes later when Rhoda said, 'I am fired with zeal, I
confess it. Henceforth my single aim shall be to bring Marm Lisa
into her lost kingdom and inheritance. But meanwhile, how, oh how
shall I master the hateful preliminaries? How shall I teach her to
lace her shoes and keep them laced, unless I invent a game for it?
How shall I keep her hair from dangling in her eyes, how keep her
aprons neat?--though in those respects she is no worse than Pacific
Simonson. I promised her a doll yesterday, and she was remarkably
good. Do you object, Mistress Mary?'

'I don't know how much rewards are used in these cases,' answered
Mary, 'but why do you begin with them when the problem presents no
insuperable difficulties as yet? Whenever she herself, her awkward
hands, her weak will, her inattention, her restlessness, give her
some task she likes, some pleasure or occupation for which she has
shown decided preference, and thus make happiness follow close upon
the heels of effort. We who see more clearly the meaning of life
know that this will not always happen, and we can be content to do
right for right's sake. I don't object to your putting hosts of
slumbering incentives in Lisa's mind, but a slumbering incentive is
not vulgar and debasing, like a bribe.'

A plant might be a feeble and common thing, yet it might grow in
beauty and strength in a garden like Mistress Mary's. Such soil in
the way of surroundings, such patient cultivation of roots and stems,
such strengthening of tendrils on all sorts of lovely props, such
sunshine of love, such dew of sympathy, such showers of kindness,