"No, I suppose not," said Dolly. "But I think it is pretty to cut out the dead wood which is unsightly, and cut away the old wood which can be spared, leaving the best shoots for blossoming the next year. And then the trimming in of overgrown bushes, so as to have neat, compact, graceful shrubs, instead of wild, awkward-growing things—it is constant pleasure, for every touch tells; and the rose-bushes, I believe seem almost like intelligent creatures to me."
"But you would not deal with intelligent creatures so?"
"The Lord does," said Dolly quietly.
"What do you mean?" said the lady sharply. "I do not understand your meaning."
"I did not mean that all people were rose-bushes," said Dolly, with again an exquisite gleam of amusement in her face.
"But will you not be so good as to explain? What can you mean, by your former remark?"
"It is not a very deep meaning," said Dolly with a little sigh. "You know, Lady Brierley, the Bible likens the Lord's people, Christians, to plants in the Lord's garden; and the Lord is the husbandman; and where He sees that a plant is growing too rank and wild, He prunes it—cuts it in—that it may be thriftier and healthier and do its work better."
"That's a dreadful idea! Where did you get it?"
"Christ said so," Dolly answered, looking now in the face of her questioner. "Is it a dreadful idea? It does not seem so to me. He is the husbandman. And I would not like to be a useless branch."
"You have been on the Continent lately?" Lady Brierley quitted the former subject.