"What slow candles!" cried Patty.
"Patience, dear," said Mrs. Lyman, smiling.
"There, mamma, you said Patience, but you didn't mean me; you meant the good kind of patience."
"Yes, I meant the patience that works and waits. Now go and wash some potatoes for to-morrow's breakfast, and then you may come again and look."
"When Patty came the second time, she exclaimed, with delight,
"O, mamma, they're as big round as candy! Wish 'twas candy; wouldn't I eat?"
Mrs. Lyman began again at the first row.
"Why, mamma Lyman, true's you live I can begin to see 'em grow!"
"You are right," said her mother. "People don't work and wait, all for nothing, daughter."
"Yankee Doodle came to town," sang Patty, dancing the time to the tune, as if she did not hear her mother's words. But she did hear them, and was putting them away in her memory, along with a thousand other things which had been said to her, and which she had not seemed to hear at the time.