When I was a kiddie I used to pray--I've prayed for hours, and it wasn't through any lack of faith that my prayers weren't answered.

On the contrary, I was enormously astonished to find how entirely the Almighty had overlooked my request for a white pony like the one at the circus." "Well, then, my dear, try to solace yourself with the fact that 'everything comes at last to him who knows how to wait.'" "But it doesn't!" Penelope Craig reflected a moment.
"Do you--know--how to wait ?" she demanded, with a significant little accent on the word "know." "I've waited in vain.

No white pony has ever come, and if it trotted in now--why, I don't want one any longer.

I tell you, Penny"-- tapping an emphatic forefinger on the other's knee--"you never get your wishes until you've out-grown them." "You've reached the mature age of three-and-twenty"-- drily.

"It's a trifle early to be so definite." "Not a bit! I want my wishes _now_, while I'm young and can enjoy them--lots of money, and amusement, and happiness! They'll be no good to me when I'm seventy or so!" "Even at seventy," remarked Penelope sagely, "wealth is better than poverty--much.