laying
with the Father's tools! They are more like to hurt themselves a deal
than to get His work done. Ay, God has His exercises of detachment, and
they are far harder than man's. He knows how to do it. He can lay a
finger right on the core of your heart, the very spot where it hurts
worst. Men can seldom do that. They would sometimes if they could, I
believe; but they cannot, except God guides them to it. Many's the time
I've been asked, with a deal of hesitation and apology, to do a thing
that did not cost me a farthing's worth of grief or labour; and as
lightly as could be, to do another which would have gone far to break
either my back or my heart. Different folks see things in such
different ways. I'll be bound, now, if each of us were asked to pick
out for one another the thing in this house that each cared most about,
we should well-nigh all of us guess wrong. We know so little of each
other's inmost hearts. That little kingdom, your own heart, is a thing
that you must keep to yourself; you can't let another into it. You can
bring him to the gate, and let him peep in, and show him a few of your
treasures; but you cannot give him the freedom of the city. Depend upon
it, you would think very differently of me from what you do, and I
should think differently of each of you, if we could see each other's
inmost hearts."

"Better or worse, Mrs Kezia?" said Cecilia.

"May be the one, and may be the other, my dear. It would hang a little
on the heart you looked at, and a great deal on the one who looked at
it. I dare say we should all get one lesson we need badly--we might
learn to bear with each other. 'Tis so easy to think, `Oh, she cannot
understand me! she never had this pain or that sorrow.' Whereas, if you
could see her as she really is, you would find she knew more about it
than you did, and understood some other things beside, which were dark
riddles to you. That is often a mountain to one which is only a
molehill to another. And trouble is as it is taken. If there were no
more troubles in this world than what we give each other in pure
kindness or in simple ignorance, girls, there would be plenty left."

"Then you think there were troubles in Eden?" said Cecilia,
mischievously.

"I was not there," said my Aunt Kezia. "After the old serpent came
there were troubles enough, I'll warrant you. If Adam came off
scot-free for saying, `The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me,' Eve
must have