So Winnie went to work again; but with less and less success. She could not see the things for tears, and a little voice in her heart, that sounded like the swallow’s, kept saying:
“You ought to please your mamma, not yourself. Self-will is only selfishness in a new dress.”
At last Winnie could stand it no longer. She burst into tears and ran into her mother’s arms.
“Oh mamma, I wanted to be good and kind, and I’ve only been naughty and disobedient. Why is it so hard to be good?”
“Because, darling, we sometimes set about it in not quite a right spirit, or we let a wrong spirit creep in and master the right one, with which we started. Even in little, little things we must ask Jesus to help us with His Holy Spirit.”
“I think I forgot to do that,” said the child. “It seemed too little to ask Jesus about.”
“Ah! darling, we all make that mistake only too often in our lives; yet nothing is too little for Him to help us in.”
Winifred looked up into her mother’s face, and said with a gravity beyond her years:
“Mamma, I sometimes think there aren’t such things as little things in the world. They seem little, but really they are quite big.”
Mrs. Digby held her child closely in her arms, feeling that there was something strange in hearing so advanced a thought fall from such childish lips. Of late she had fancied that Winifred’s mind had developed rapidly.