“Yes, Phillis. And then the hill! I scarcely ever look at it without saying to myself, ‘I will look unto the hill from whence cometh my help.’”
“The doctor lives the other way, though,” said Phillis.
“I am never weary of watching the continually varying effects of light and shade on it. And yet, how loath I was to settle in this place! But, directly I saw that hill, with its steep, chalky sides, its patches of short turf, its fringe of beeches at the top, and its kilns and lime-burners’ cottages at the base, with the steep bridle-roads and sheep-tracks winding up it, I felt, ‘That hill is my fate: there must be a fresh air blowing over it, a fine view from it; and, with God’s blessing, it may make me wiser, healthier, and happier than I am now.’”
“It hasn’t made you healthier, though,” said Phillis.
“O yes, Phillis, it did. For a long while after I came here, I used to walk to it, and at length up it, every day. At first, I was surprised to find how steep and long the road was, even to its foot.”
“But I thought nothing of it afterwards,” said I. “At first I used to call it (to myself), the Hill Difficulty. After that, the Hill of Conquered Wishes.”
“Because you couldn’t get to the top,” suggested Phillis.
“Not only that. There were a good many things I wished altered—things that I could not alter for myself, and that I did not feel quite sure it would be right to pray to God to alter.”
“Such as puddles and miry bits of road,” said Phillis.
“No, not things of that sort. And so I used to think them over, as I walked up that hill, and struggle with myself to take them kindly, humbly, and submissively, as they were, such seeming to be God’s will; and at length I succeeded.”
“At the top of the hill, there was a steep patch of turf, on which, as it seemed to me, grew every wild-flower that I knew. I used to call it (to myself), the Garden of the Lord.”
“Wasn’t that rather wicked?” said Phillis.
“Why, whose else was it, Phillis? Man had nothing to do with it.”
“Why, wasn’t you a woman?—leastways, a lady?”
“Oh, I didn’t know it was planted,” said Phillis. “You said the things growed wild.”
“Well, so they did—the Lord planted them. I used to stand there, looking at them, and smelling them, and inhaling the sweet, fresh air, till He seemed nearer to me there than anywhere else.”
