(I suppose my heart was in them, or I should have found them irksome.) Above all, I was not permitted to brood over the past: I was taught to feel that every thought of it indulged, was a sin, and to be accounted for as such: I could only remember the one for whom I mourned, on my knees, in my prayers.

This checked, as nothing else could have done, the morbid tendency of grief, in a lonely, unoccupied, undisciplined mind.

I was thoroughly obedient, and bent myself with all simplicity to follow the instructions given me.

Sometimes they seemed very irrelevant and useless, but I never rebelled against any, even one that seemed as hard to flesh and blood as this.

And I have, sooner or later, seen the wisdom of them all, as I have worked out the problem of my correction.
Obedient as I was, though, and simple as the routine of my life continued, sometimes there came crises that were beyond my strength.
I can remember one; it was a furious storm--a day that nailed one in the house.