t you become able both to understand and to wonder
at more of the things about you. There are people who the more they
understand, wonder the less; but such are not growing straight; they are
growing crooked. There are two ways of growing. You may be growing up,
or you may be growing down; and if you are doing both at once, then
you are growing crooked. There are people who are growing up in
understanding, but down in goodness. It is a beautiful fact, however,
that you can't grow up in goodness and down in understanding; while the
great probability is, that, if you are not growing better, you will by
and by begin to grow stupid. Those who are growing the right way, the
more they understand, the more they wonder; and the more they learn to
do, the more they want to do. Willie was a boy of this kind. I don't
care to write about boys and girls, or men and women, who are not
growing the right way. They are not interesting enough to write about.

But he was not the only one to grow: Agnes grew as well; and the more
Willie grew capable of helping her, the more he found Agnes required of
him. It was a long time, however, before he knew how much he was obliged
to Agnes for requiring so much of him.

She grew and grew until she was capable of a doll; when of course a doll
was given her--not a new one just bought, but a most respectable old
doll, a big one that had been her mother's when she was a little girl,
and which she had been wise enough to put in her trunk before she left
her mother's house to go home with Mr Macmichael. She made some new
clothes for it now, and Tibby made a cloak and bonnet for her to wear
when she went out of doors. But it struck Willie that her shoes, which
were only of cloth, were very unfit for walking, and he thought that in
a doctor's family it was something quite amazing that, while head and
shoulders were properly looked after, the feet should remain utterly
neglected. It was clear that must be his part in the affair; it could
not be anybody else's, for in that case some one else would have
attended to it. He must see about it.

I think I have said before that Willie knew almost everybody in the
village, and I might have added that everybody without exception knew
him. He was a favourite--first of all, because his father was much loved
and trusted; next, because his mother spoke as kindly to her husband's
poor patients as to the richer ones; and last, because he himself spoke
to everybody with