"..Smiles are little things, cheap articles to be fraught with so many blessings, both to the giver and the receiver-pleasant little ripples to watch as we stand on the shore of every day life. These are the higher and better responses of nature to the emotion of the soul. Let the children have the benefit of them-those little ones who need the sunshine of the heart to educate them, and would find a level for their buoyant nature in the cheerful, loving faces of those who need them. Let them not be kept from the middle-aged, who need the encouragement they bring. Give your smiles also to the aged. They come to them like the quiet rain of summer, making fresh and verdant the long, weary path of life. they look for them from you, who are rejoicing in the fulness of life....
But, O woman-whether you live in a palace or in a hovel-if your chief care be to have God ever live in your heart, His light within you will shed such unearthly beauty on all things. You will make your loved ones see a fairy palace in this world, in spite of your own poverty and your life of hard labor. So, keep that light ever full in your family's soul.
The chief aim in your sharing all joys and amusements with your dear ones should be to make them feel that your presence, your love is for them the source of all present happiness, and that they can come to your arms, to your heart at all hours."
(from"Daughters Of Destiny" by Noelle Wheeler)
(picture is Lizzie as a baby)
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