You can't tell just what it lacks, but it does lack something until you've done that--you can see it yourself after it's done, but that is all you know; you can't find out the law of it.

It's like the finishing pats a mother gives the child's hair after she's got it combed and brushed, I reckon.

I've seen her fix all these things so much that I can do them all just her way, though I don't know the law of any of them.

But she knows the law.

She knows the why and the how both; but I don't know the why; I only know the how." He took me into a bedroom so that I might wash my hands; such a bedroom as I had not seen for years: white counterpane, white pillows, carpeted floor, papered walls, pictures, dressing-table, with mirror and pin-cushion and dainty toilet things; and in the corner a wash-stand, with real china-ware bowl and pitcher, and with soap in a china dish, and on a rack more than a dozen towels--towels too clean and white for one out of practice to use without some vague sense of profanation.