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, such favouring breezes of opportunity, such pleasure for a new leaf, joy for a bud, gratitude for a bloom!  What an atmosphere in which to grow towards knowledge and goodness!  Was it any wonder that the little people ‘all in a row’ responded to the genius of Mistress Mary’s influence?  They used to sing a song calleth The Light Bird,’ in which some one, all unknown to the children, would slip into the playground with a bit of broken looking-glass, and suddenly a radiant fluttering disk of light would appear on the wall, and dance up and down, above and below, hither and yon, like a winged sunbeam.  The children held out longing arms, and sang to it coaxingly.  Sometimes it quivered over Mistress Mary’s head, and fired every delicate point of her steel tiara with such splendour that the Irish babies almost felt like crossing themselves.  At such times, those deux petits cœurs secs, Atlantic and Pacific, and all the other full-fledged and half-fledged scape-graces, forgot to be naughty, and the millennium was foreshadowed.  The neophytes declared Mistress Mary a bit of a magician.  Somehow or other, the evil imps in the children shrank away, abashed by the soft surprise of a glance that seemed to hope something better, and the good angels came out of their banishment, unfolded their wings, and sunned themselves in the warmth of her approving smile.  Her spiritual antennæ were so fine, so fine, that they discerned the good in everything; they were feeling now after the soft spot in the rocky heart of Atlantic Simonson; they had not found it yet, but they would—oh, they would in time; for if hope is the lover’s staff, it is no less that of the idealist.

Marm Lisa looked upon the miracles that happened under Mistress Mary’s roof with a sort of dazed wonder, but her intelligence grew a little day by day; and though she sadly taxed everybody’s patience, she infused a new spirit into all the neophytes.

Had not improvement been rapid, their untrained zeal might perhaps have flagged.  Had the mental symptoms, by their obscurity, baffled them or defied them on every side, their lack of systematic, scientific training for such a task might have made them discouraged: but delicate and exacting as the work was, their love and enthusiasm, their insight and patience, their cleverness and ingenuity, triumphed over all obstacles; and luckily for their youth and comparative inexperience, they were rewarded in marvellous measure.

Not that every day was bright and hopeful.  The carefully kept record was black enough on occasions, beginning with the morning when Helen, sitting in the circle, felt a rough hand on her head, and Marm Lisa, without the slightest warning of her intention, snatched Mary’s steel band forcibly from her hair, and, taking it across the room, put it in its accustomed place on its owner’s head.  Everybody was startled, but Mary rose from her chair quietly, and, taking the ornament in one hand and Marm Lisa in the other, she came to Helen’s side.

‘I like to have my shining crown in Miss Helen’s hair,’ she said; ‘it is such pretty, curly hair—stroke it softly, Lisa; she must wear it this morning to please me, and then I will take it again for my own.  Dear Miss Helen, who is so sweet and good to the children, I love her,’ and she kissed her fondly on each cheek.

Marm Lisa did not attempt to rebel but she was sullen, and refused her work when it was offered her later.

Such occurrences were rare, however, for her obliquity always seemed mental rather than moral.

Straws and bright papers, beads and pretty forms to thread on stout laces, were given her to wean her from her favourite but aimless string-play.  There were days of restlessness which she wandered up and down stairs, and could not be kept in her chair nor persuaded to stand in her place in the circle.  There were days, too, when she tore the bright cardboards and glossy weaving-mats that ordinarily gave her such keen pleasure; but this carelessness grew more and more infrequent, until it ceased altogether, so that it had probably come more from her inability to hold and move the materials and needles properly than from a wanton instinct of destruction; for they would often see the tears drop from her eyes upon her clumsy fingers as she strove to make them obey her feeble behests.  At such a moment there was always some one to fling herself with passionate ardour and sympathy into this latest difficulty.  A stouter weaving-needle was invented, and a mat of pretty coloured morocco substituted for the fragile paper; while the poor inert hands were held and coaxed and strengthened every day by finger gymnastics.

As Lisa grew in power Rhoda grew in ingenuity, and failure in any one particular only stimulated her genius of invention the more.  Did she spill paste, mucilage, water on her gingham aprons, and wipe anything and everything on them that came in her way, Rhoda dressed her in daintier ones of white cambric, with a ruffle at the neck and sleeves; the child’s pleasure knew no bounds, and she kept the aprons clean.  With Mrs. Grubb’s permission her hair was cut shorter, and brushed back under a round comb.  No regiment of soldiers could have kept the comb in place.  It was taken away and a blue ribbon substituted.  She untied the ribbon every five minutes for two days, when Mary circumvented her by sewing a blue ribbon on each sleeve.  This seemed to divert her attention from the head-band, and after a week or two she allowed it to remain without interference.  Mary gave her low shoes, hoping that the lessened trouble of lacing them would make the task a possibility.  There was no improvement.  If she laced them, it was only under supervision, and they were always untied within the hour, the dangling laces tripping her awkward feet.  Slippers or old-fashioned shoes with elastic at the side would have been an easy way out of the difficulty, but to Rhoda’s mind that would have been a humiliating confession of failure.  As a last resort she bought brown shoes and brown laces.

‘If these do not succeed,’ she said, ‘I will have red ones made, paint the tips blue, and give her yellow laces; but I will fix her mind on her feet and arouse her pride in them, or die in the attempt.’