Handsome Is That Handsome Does
A WOMAN, famous as one of the most kindly and lovable among leaders of the best American society, once said: “If I have been able to accomplish anything in life, it is due to a word spoken to me in the right season when I was a child, by my old teacher. I was the only homely, awkward girl in a class of exceptionally pretty ones, and being also dull at my books, became the butt of the school. I fell into a morose, despairing state, gave up study, withdrew into myself, and grew daily more bitter and vindictive. “One day the French teacher, a gray-haired old woman with keen eyes and a kind smile, found me crying. “‘Qu’ as tu, ma fille?’ she asked. “‘O, madame, I am so ugly!’ I sobbed out. She soothed me, but did not contradict me. “Presently she took me to her room, and, after amusing me for some time, said: ‘I have a present for you,’ handing me a scaly, coarse lump, covered with earth. ‘It is round and brown as you. ‘Ugly?’ did you say? Very well. We will call it by your name, then. It is you! Now you shall plant it and water it and give it sun for a week or two.’ “I planted it, and watched it carefully; the green leaves came first, and at last the golden Japanese lily, the first I had ever seen. Madame came to share my delight. “‘Ah,’ she said, significantly, ‘who would believe so much beauty and fragrance were shut up in that little, rough, ugly thing? But it took heart and came up into the sun.’ “It was the first time that it ever occurred to me that in spite of my ugly face, I, too, might be able to win friends and to make myself beloved in the world.”—Northwestern Christian Advocate.