Say, boy, did you know an architect once made plans for a great building and when he went to work it out, nothing fitted, because away back in the beginning he made a mistake of one inch with his ruler, and it put the whole thing out of joint!
Or Mary, her mother's pride, did not put into her work quite enough time. She fooled over it, and played with it—and when the examination results came out, she failed. And when she saw her mother's sad face, she tried to comfort her by saying, "Oh, it's no matter!"
It seems so dreadful to see a man who has grown up to think things do not matter. His looks—"Oh, well, what's the odds how I look?"
Of course, it is only when he is married or else settled into a grouchy old bachelor he says this. If he is still looking forward—Huh! That makes a difference!
Some young fellows once were lounging about the street corner, when one of them saw a bright young girl coming down the street, and say! he went away so fast his companions wondered what had happened. Well, he did not want her to see him, for he felt it would matter very much for him if she saw his careless street life.
Or his clothes.—Sometimes you can almost tell what he had for dinner by the spots on his vest; and the whole thing started a long time earlier, when as a little boy he said, "It's no matter!"
And it is just the same with the girl. She grows up with a faded character and lopsided gait, and looks as though what she wore had been thrown at her with a pitchfork and sort of lodged on her person.
Sometimes she is real clever and knows a lot, but oh, the pity! She did not think her appearance mattered, and there she is, so that people look at her when she passes, and laugh.
It is very much worse, though, to let that spirit get past your body and your clothes and your outer habits, into the inside of you.
For then, when people see you doing things and saying things you should not,—things that make people look at you—the old habit, started when you were a girl or boy, comes out, and you think it does not matter.