...in the afternoon we walked in the Parks; and I wondered who shod all the horses there, and wished Joe did.

--

:(

you can take the boy out of the blacksmith but you can't take the blacksmith out of the boy

"Do you want to be a gentleman, to spite her or to gain her over?" Biddy quietly asked me, after a pause.

"I don't know," I moodily answered.

"Because, if it is to spite her," Biddy pursued, "I should think - but you know best - that might be better and more independently done by caring nothing for her words. And if it is to gain her over, I should think - but you know best - she was not worth gaining over."

Pip, Pip, Pip.

Sweet, dumb, Pip. You are just not even close to equal to the woman that Biddy already is.

That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But, it is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron and gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day.