when they put my children quite out of countenance by their
consciousness of the fine clothes they wear, and their knowledge of
the world. Even I find it hard not to feel abashed in the presence of
so much of the sort of wisdom in which I am lacking. As to Lucy she
is exactly in her sphere: the calm dignity with which she reigns in
her husband's house, and the moderation and self-control with which
she guides his children, are really instructive. She has a baby of
her own, and though it acts just like other babies and kicks,
scratches, pulls. and cries when it is washed and dressed, she goes
through that process with a serenity and deliberation that I envy
with all my might. Her predecessor in the nursery was all nerve and
brain, and has left four children made of the same material behind
her. But their wild spirits on one day, and their depression and
languor on the next, have no visible effect upon her. Her influence
is always quieting; she tones down their vehemence with her own calm
decision and practical good sense. It is amusing to see her seated
among those four little furies, who love each other in such a
distracted way that somebody's feelings are always getting hurt, and
somebody always crying. By a sort of magnetic influence she heals
these wounds immediately, and finds some prosaic occupation as an
antidote to these poetical moods. I confess that I am instructed and
reproved whenever I go to see her, and wish I were more like her.

But there is no use in trying to engraft an opposite nature on one's
own. What I am, that I must be, except as God changes me into His own
image. And everything brings me back to that, as my supreme desire. I
see more and more that I must be myself what I want my children to
be, and that I cannot make myself over even for their sakes. This
must be His work, and I wonder that it goes on so slowly; that all
the disappointments, sorrows, sicknesses I have passed through, have