"Goose! Why didn't he, instead of crying for more worlds to conquer, try to get at the inside of the one he had conquered the husk of? Why did not he study botany, geology, and—poverty?"
"You are right, Clara," the mother replied. "Excess is always blinding. Why, we might have our whole house covered with morning-glories, yet never see the little silver tree that stands down in a garden of light at the bottom of each."
Clara clapped her hands with delight. "But fancy the house covered from top to bottom with morning-glories all in bloom! It would be magical!"
"Fancy yourself falling out of that chair," suggested Mrs. Yorke.
The girl stepped down, and walked thoughtfully toward the door. "How odd it is," she said, pausing on the threshold, and looking back; "I never see one truth, but immediately I perceive another looking over its shoulder. And the last is greater than the first."
"It is perhaps an example of truth which you see at first," Mrs. Yorke said. "And afterward you perceive the truth itself."
Clara went slowly toward the stairs, and her mother listened after her, expecting to hear some philosophical remark flung down over the balusters. Instead of that, she heard a loud call to Betsey that the hens and chickens were all in the parlor, screams of laughter at the scene of their violent expulsion, then a clear lark-song as Clara finished her ascent.
Up-stairs, Melicent and Hester were busy and cheerful, quiet, too, till Clara came. She soon created a breeze, and sounds of eager discussion came down to their mother's ears. They were laying plans for the summer. They would have company down from Boston, and, when winter came, would each in turn visit the city. They would have more help in the house; and, in order to pay for it, would write for publication. Every one else wrote; why not they? Indeed, Melicent had appeared in print, a friendly editor having taken with thanks some sketches she had written between drive and opera. "What is worth printing is worth paying for," she said now; "and I shall feel no reluctance in announcing that in future my Pegasus runs for a purse."
Clara had never been before the public; but she had reams of paper written over with stories, poems, plays, and even sermons. She caught fire at everything, and, in the first excitement, dashed off some crude composition, but seldom or never went over it coolly. Melicent, to whom alone she showed her productions, had discouraged her. "You are like Nick Bottom, and insist on doing everything," she said. "It is a sign of incompetence."
Miss Yorke was one of those hyper-fastidious persons who establish a reputation for critical ability simply by finding fault with everything. Clara, on the contrary, was supposed to have a defective taste, because she was always admiring, and searching out hidden beauties.