going to rain all
day long.

L. So am I, Kate. The sky has quite an Irish way with it But I don't see
why Irish girls should also look so dismal. Fancy that you don't want to
crystallise yourselves: you didn't, the day before yesterday, and you
were not unhappy when it rained then.

FLORRIE. Ah! but we do want to-day; and the rain's so tiresome.

L. That is to say, children, that because you are all the richer by the
expectation of playing at a new game, you choose to make yourselves
unhappier than when you had nothing to look forward to, but the old
ones.

ISABEL. But then, to have to wait--wait--wait; and before we've tried
it;--and perhaps it will rain to-morrow, too!

L. It may also rain the day after to-morrow. We can make ourselves
uncomfortable to any extent with perhapses, Isabel. You may stick
perhapses into your little minds, like pins, till you are as
uncomfortable as the Lilliputians made Gulliver with their arrows, when
he would not lie quiet.

ISABEL. But what _are_ we to do to-day?

L. To be quiet, for one thing, like Gulliver when he saw there was
nothing better to be done. And to practise patience. I can tell you
children, _that_ requires nearly as much practising as music; and we are
continually losing our lessons when the master comes. Now, to-day,
here's a nice little adagio lesson for us, if we play it properly.

ISABEL. But I don't like that sort of lesson. I can't play it properly.

L. Can you play a Mozart sonata yet, Isabel? The more need to practise.
All one's life is a music, if one touches the notes rightly, and in
time. But there must be no hurry.

KATHLEEN. I'm sure there's no music in stopping in on a rainy day.

L. There's no music in a 'rest,' Katie, that I know of: but there's the
making of music in it. And people are always missing that part of the
life-melody; and scrambling on without counting--not that it's easy to
count; but nothing on which so much depends ever _is_ easy. People are
always talking of perseverance, and courage, and fortitude; but patience
is the finest and worthiest part of fortitude,--and the rarest, too. I
know twenty persevering girls for one patient one: but it is only that
twenty-first who can do her work, out and out, or enjoy it. For patience
lies at the root of all pleasures, as well as of all powers. Hope
herself ceases to be happiness, when Impatience companions her.

(ISABEL _and_ LILY _sit down on the floor, and fold their
hands