"You have been punished enough," said the Doctor. "I have sent for you now just to say a word or two. You are a very young climber, Polly, but if this kind of thing is often repeated, you will never make any way."
"Child," he said, "we have all of us to go up mountains, and if you choose a higher one, with peaks nearer to the sky than others, you have all the more need for the necessary helps for ascent."
"Father is always delightful when he is allegorical," Polly had once said.
Now she threw back her head, looked full into his dearly-loved face, clasped his hands tightly in both her own, and said with tears filling her eyes, "I am glad you are going to teach me through a kind of story, and I think I know what you mean by my trying to climb the highest mountain. I always did long to do whatever I did a little better than any one else."
"Exactly so, Polly; go on wishing that. Still try to climb the highest mountain, only take with you humility instead of self-confidence, and then, child, you will succeed, for you will be very glad to avail yourself of the necessary helps."
"The helps? What are they, father? I partly know what you mean, but I am not sure that I quite know."
"Oh, yes, you quite know. You have known ever since you knelt at your mother's knee, and whispered your prayers all the better to God because she was listening too. But I will explain myself by the commonest of illustrations. A shepherd wanted to rescue one of his flock from a most perilous situation. The straying sheep had come to a ledge of rock, from where it could not move either backwards or forwards. It had climbed up thousands of feet. How was the shepherd to get it? There was one way. His friends went by another road to the top of the mountain. From there they threw down ropes, which he bound firmly round him, and then they drew him slowly up. He reached the ledge, he rescued the sheep, and it was saved. He could have done nothing without the ropes. So you, too, Polly, can do nothing worthy; you can never climb your high mountain without the aid of that prayer which links you to your Father in heaven. Do you understand?"
"Yes, I understand," said Polly; "I see. I won't housekeep any more for the present, father."