istakable
nature of my weakest point. There was no doubt as to what I should
pray against and strive against. But on that day it seemed not only as
if I could never give way to ill-temper again, but as if the trumpery
causes of former outbreaks could never even tempt me to do so. As the
lines of that ancient hymn to the Holy Ghost--"_Veni Creator_"--rolled
on, I prayed humbly enough that my unworthy efforts might yet be
crowned by the sevenfold gifts of the Spirit; but that a soul which
sincerely longed to be "lightened with celestial fire" could be
tempted to a common fit of sulks or scolding by the rub of nursery
misdeeds and mischances, felt then so little likely as hardly to be
worth deprecating on my knees.

And yet, when the service was over, the fatigue of the mental strain
and of long kneeling and standing began to tell in a feeling that came
sadly near to peevishness. I spent the rest of the day resolutely in
my room and on my knees, hoping to keep up those high thoughts and
emotions which had made me feel happy as well as good. And yet I all
but utterly broke down into the most commonplace crossness because
Philip did not do as I did, but romped noisily with the others, and
teased me for looking grave at tea.

I just did not break down. So much remained alive of the "celestial
fire," that I kept my temper behind my teeth. Long afterwards, when I
learnt by accident that Philip's "good resolve" on the occasion had
been that he would be kinder to "the little ones," I was very glad
that I had not indulged my uncharitable impulse to lecture him on
indifference to spiritual progress.

That evening Aunt Isobel gave me a new picture for my room. It was a
fine print of the Crucifixion, for which I had often longed, a German
woodcut in the powerful manner of Albert Duerer, after a design by
Michael Angelo. It was neither too realistic nor too mediaeval, and the
face was very noble. Aunt Isobel had had it framed, and below on an
illuminated scroll was written--"What are these wounds in Thine
Hands? Those with which I was wounded in the house of My friends."

"I often think," she said, when we had hung it up and were looking at
it, "that it is not in our Lord's Cross and Passion that His patience
comes most home to us. To be patient before an unjust judge or brutal
soldiers might be almost a part of self-respect; but patience with the
daily disappointments of a life 'too good for this world,' as people
say, patience