rticularly gay when it was done. Her mother believed
that, if infants could think and look forward, they would be far more
terrified with the prospect of having to walk on their two legs all
their lives, than lame people could be at having to learn the art in
part over again. Grown people are apt to doubt whether they can learn a
new language, though children make no difficulty about it: the reason of
which is, that grown people see at one view the whole labour, while
children do not look beyond their daily task. Experience, however,
always brings relief. Experience shows that every effort comes at its
proper time, and that there is variety or rest in the intervals. People
who have to wash and dress every morning have other things to do in the
after-part of the day; and, as the old fable tells us, the clock that
has to tick, before it is worn out, so many millions of times as it
perplexes the mind to think of, has exactly the same number of seconds
to do it in; so that it never has more work on its hands than it can get
through. So Hugh would find that he could move about on each separate
occasion, as he wanted; and practice would, in time, enable him to do it
without any more thought than it now cost him to put all the bones of
his hands in order, so as to carry his tea and bread-and-butter to his
mouth.

"But that is not all--nor half what I mean," said Hugh.

"No, my dear; nor half what you will have to make up your mind to bear.
You will have a great deal to bear, Hugh. You resolved to bear it all
patiently, I remember: but what is it that you dread the most?"

"Oh! all manner of things. I can never do things like other people."

"Some things. You can never play cricket, as every Crofton boy would
like to do. You can never dance at your sisters' Christmas parties."

"Oh! mamma!" cried Agnes, with tears in her eyes, and 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 aunt Shaw does (and even Agnes
sometimes), that it wont 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."

"That is a common way of trying to give comfort, and it is kindly
meant," said Mrs. Proctor. "But those who have suffered much themselves
know a better way. The best way is not to deny any of the trouble or the
sorrow, and not to press on the