painted for Mary Mother, her face is so passionless and pure and good. I
used to want to make her wrap a blue cloth round her head, as if she were
in a picture I have a print of, and then, if we could only find the
painter who was as pure and good as she, she should be painted as Mary
Mother. Well, this sweet Saint has done lovely things in life, and will do
more, till she dies. And the people she deals with do many more than she.
For her truth and gentleness and loveliness pass into them, and inspire
them, and then, with the light and life they gain from her, they can do
what, with her light and life, she cannot do. For she herself, like all of
us, has her limitations. And I suppose the one reason why, with such
serenity and energy and long-suffering and unselfishness as hers, she does
not succeed better in her own person is that she does not know how to "be
short." We cannot all be or do all things. First boy in Latin, you may
translate that sentence back into Latin, and see how much better it sounds
there than in English. Then send your version to the Letter-Box.

For instance, it may be Agatha's duty to come and tell me that--what
shall we have it?--say that dinner is ready. Now really the best way but
one to say that is, "Dinner is ready, sir." The best way is, "Dinner,
sir"; for this age, observe, loves to omit the verb. Let it. But really if
St. Agatha, of whom I speak,--the second of that name, and of the
Protestant, not the Roman Canon,--had this to say, she would say: "I am so
glad to see you! I do not want to take your time, I am sure, you have so
many things to do, and you are so good to everybody, but I knew you would
let me tell you this. I was coming up stairs, and I saw your cook,
Florence, you know. I always knew her; she used to live at Mrs. Cradock's
before she started on her journey; and her sister lived with that friend
of mine that I visited the summer Willie was so sick with the mumps, and
she was so kind to him. She was a beautiful woman; her husband would be
away all the day, and, when he came home, she would have a piece of