There is no parrot repetition, sing-song, meaningless, of words that have ceased to be vital.

New lessons are to be learned as fast as the old ones are understood.

Of what use to set Polly tasks to develop her bravery, when she was already brave?
Courage was one of the little jewels set in her fairy crown when she was born, but there was a round, empty space beside it, where Patience should have been.

Further along was Daring, making a brilliant show, but again there was a tiny vacancy waiting for Prudence.
The crown made a fine appearance, on the whole, because the large jewels were mostly in place, and the light of these blinded you to the lack of the others; but to the eye of the keen observer there was a want of symmetry and completeness.
Polly knew the unfinished state of her fairy crown as well as anybody else.

She could not plead ignorance as an excuse; but though she would have gone on polishing the great gems with a fiery zeal, she added the little jewels very slowly, and that only on compulsion.
There had been seven or eight weeks of partial unconsciousness, when the sorrow and the loneliness of life stole into her waking dreams only vaguely and at intervals; when she was unhappy, and could not remember why; and slept, to wake and wonder and sleep again.
Then there were days and weeks when the labor of living was all that the jaded body could accomplish; when memory was weak; when life began at the pillow, and ended at the foot of the bed, and the universe was bounded by the chamber windows.
But when her strength came back, and she stood in the middle of the floor, clothed and in her right mind, well enough to remember,--oh! then indeed the deep waters of bitterness rolled over poor Polly's head and into her heart, and she sank beneath them without a wish or a struggle to rise.
"If it had been anything else!" she sobbed.