as she had a childish fashion of tracing things to commonplace causes,
whenever she felt her face grow hot easily, or her throat choke up as
men's do when they swear, she concluded that her liver was inactive, and
her soul was tired of sitting at her Master's feet, like Mary. So she
used to take longer walks before breakfast, and cry sharply,
incessantly, in her heart, as the man did who was tainted with leprosy,
"Lord, help me!" And the Lord always did help her.

My story is of Dode; so I must tell you that these passion-fits were the
only events of her life. For the rest, she washed and sewed and ironed.
If her heart and brain needed more than this, she was cheerful in spite
of their hunger. Almost all of God's favorites among women, before their
life-work is given them, pass through such hunger,--seasons of dull, hot
inaction, fierce struggles to tame and bind to some unfitting work the
power within. Generally, they are tried thus in their youth,--just as
the old aspirants for knighthood were condemned to a night of solitude
and prayer before the day of action. This girl was going through her
probation with manly-souled bravery.

She came out on the porch now, to help her father on with his coat, and
to tie his spatterdashes. You could not see her in the dark, of course;
but you would not wonder, if you felt her hand, or heard her speak, that
the old man liked to touch her, as everybody did,--spoke to her gently:
her own voice, did I say? was so earnest and rich,--hinted at unsounded
depths of love and comfort, such as utter themselves in some
unfashionable women's voices and eyes. Theodora, or -dosia, or some such
heavy name, had been hung on her when she was born,--nobody remembered
what: people always called her Dode, so as to bring her closer, as it
were, and to fancy themselves akin to her.