Page:Wiggin--Marm Lisa.djvu/194

182 and I am growing olives. Do you remember what the Spanish monk said to the tree that he pruned, and that cried out under his hook? 'It is not beauty that is wanted of you, nor shade, but olives.' The sun is hot, and it has not rained for many a long week, it seems to me, but the dew of your influence falls ever sweet and fresh on the dust of my daily task.

"Enclosed please find the wherewithal for Lisa’s next step higher. As she needs more it will come.  I give it for sheer gratitude, as the good folk gave their pennies to Pastor Von Bodelschwingh.  Why am I grateful?  For your existence, to be sure!  I had lived my life haunted by the feeling that there was such a woman, and finally the mysterious wind of destiny blew me to her, 'as the tempest brings the rose-tree to the pollard willow.'

"Do not be troubled about me, little mother-of-many! There was once upon a time a common mallow by the roadside, and being touched by Mohammed’s garment as he passed, it was changed at once into a geranium; and best of all, it remained a geranium for ever after.

"."