but it does
make one feel blessedly rich, and quite indifferent to many things
which are usually looked upon as desirable possessions. I am sincerely
grateful that it was given to me, from childhood, to see life from this
point of view. And it seems to me that every young girl would be
happier for beginning her earthly journey with the thankful
consciousness that her life does not consist in the abundance of things
that she possesses.

The highest possible poetic conception is that of a life consecrated to
a noble ideal. It may be unable to find expression for itself except
through humble, even menial services, or through unselfish devotion
whose silent song is audible to God alone; yet such music as this might
rise to heaven from every young girl's heart and character if she would
set it free. In such ways it was meant that the world should be filled
with the true poetry of womanhood.

It is one of the most beautiful facts in this human existence of ours,
that we remember the earliest and freshest part of it most vividly.
Doubtless it was meant that our childhood should live on in us forever.
My childhood was by no means a cloudless one. It had its light and
shade, each contributing a charm which makes it wholly delightful in
the retrospect.

I can see very distinctly the child that I was, and I know how the
world looked to her, far off as she is now. She seems to me like my
little sister, at play in a garden where I can at any time return and
find her. I have enjoyed bringing her back, and letting her tell her
story, almost as if she were somebody else. I like her better than I
did when I was really a child, and I hope never to part company with
her.

I do not feel so much satisfaction in the older girl who comes between
her and me, although she, too, is enough like me to be my sister, or
even more like my young, undisciplined mother; for the girl is mother
of the woman. But I have to acknowledge her faults and mistakes as my
own, while I sometimes feel like reproving her severely for her
carelessly performed tasks, her habit of lapsing into listless
reveries, her cowardly shrinking from responsibility and vigorous
endeavor, and many other faults that I have inherited from her. Still,
she is myself, and I could not be quite happy without her comradeship.

Every phase of our life belongs to us. The moon does not, except in
appearance, lose her first thin, luminous curve, nor her silvery
crescent, in rounding to