"'Why, mother! you?" exclaimed Hugh.
"Yes; that was the sort of little girl I was. Well, I was in despair, one day, at the thought that I should have to wash, and clean my teeth, and brush my hair, and put on every article of dress, every morning, as long as I lived."
"Did you tell anybody?" asked Hugh.
12. "No, I was ashamed to do that; but I remember I cried. You see how it turns out. When we have become accustomed to anything, we do it without ever thinking of the trouble, and, as the old fable tells us, the clock that has to tick so many millions of times, has exactly the same number of seconds to do it in. So will you find that you can move about on each separate occasion, as you wish, and practice will enable you to do it without any trouble or thought."
"But this is not all, nor half what I mean," said Hugh.
13. "No, my dear, nor half what you will have to bear. You resolved to bear it all patiently, I remember. But what is it you dread the most?"
"Oh! all manner of things. I can never do like other people."
"Some things," replied his mother. "You can never play cricket, as every
Crofton boy would like to do. You can never dance at your sister's
Christmas parties."
14. "O mamma!" cried Agnes, with tears in her eyes, and with the thought in her mind that it was cruel to talk so.
"Go on! Go on!" cried Hugh, brightening. "You know what I feel, mother; and you don't keep telling me, as others do, and even sister Agnes, sometimes, that it will not signify much, and that I shall not care, and all that; making out that it is no misfortune, hardly, when I know what it is, and they don't. Now, then, go on, mother! What else?"