Or the hour will strike at last,
When, from dreams of a coming battle,
You may wake to find it past!"
"How much better we understand things than we did three months ago!" said Winnie. "I used to dream of the grand things I was going to do when I grew up." Then she added, blushing a little as she remembered her cross Saturday morning, "I do yet, sometimes, but I don't think I neglect quite so many things as I used to."
"I never had much chance either to neglect things or to dream," said Gretta, "for papa or mamma or my sister was always reminding me that it was time to do this or that or the other. But I am beginning now to think of some of my faults. I couldn't find anything for this afternoon, except the Memory Gem we learned in the First Reader. You know I don't read a great deal myself, and we all seem to have so much to do at our house; when it isn't something else, it's practice, practice, practice! Even this little verse I don't suppose I should have remembered if I hadn't heard the children reciting it at the 'Colony':
"One thing at a time,
And that done well,
Is a very good rule,
As many can tell."
"Why, that's the very thing, Gretta! I'm surprised that none of the rest of us thought of it. How queer that the same piece of advice, in one form or another, has been given to us ever since we were little girls, and that we have just begun to realize what it all means!" said Fannie.