A young boy named Maurice, nearly five years old, struggles with impatience in his daily life. His mother works to teach him the value of patient effort through small, everyday challenges — untying a stubborn knot in his shoe, learning his spelling lessons without distraction, enduring a toothache without disturbing the household at night. Each episode illustrates how impatience brings Maurice trouble, embarrassment, or discomfort, while patient effort brings him satisfaction and reward. The family travels to the countryside to visit Maurice's grandparents, and there Maurice is introduced to a young woman named Kitty Maynard, whose story becomes the moral and emotional center of the narrative. Kitty, now nineteen, was once a healthy, lively child. At the age of ten, while babysitting an infant cousin during a family outing, her clothing caught fire from a stove spark. Despite her own burning agony, she kept her promise not to leave the baby unattended and ran with the child to a neighboring house for help. The baby survived with minor injuries but later died of an unrelated illness. Kitty, however, was catastrophically injured. Her hands were so badly burned she never regained full use of her fingers, and she has suffered severe and frequent convulsions ever since — for nearly nine years at the time Maurice meets her. Far from being embittered, Kitty has become a figure of extraordinary spiritual patience. She earns small amounts of money through delicate handcraft — making cushions and decorative items from scraps of fabric donated by Maurice's mother — and she greets every small kindness with deep gratitude. She marks her better days as days "written with a white stone." Her faith is not passive resignation but an active, loving trust in God, whom she credits with helping her endure suffering without bitterness. Those around her, including Maurice's mother, find that witnessing Kitty's patience makes their own comparatively minor trials feel easier to bear. Maurice visits Kitty repeatedly through the summer. He watches her work, listens to her sing hymns, and hears her quote scripture during her worst moments of pain. He is profoundly affected, particularly when he reflects that Kitty's suffering dwarfs his own toothache, which he had treated as cause for waking the entire household. He begins adding a petition to his nightly prayers, asking God to help him be patient as Kitty is patient — in lessons, in small chores, and in physical discomfort. The following winter, Maurice falls seriously ill with scarlet fever. He suffers considerably but endures the illness without complaint, referencing Kitty's example and the scriptural command to be patient in tribulation. His father is so moved that he writes to Kitty to tell her the effect her example has had on his son, and he increases his annual financial contribution to her care fourfold, eventually funding a specialist physician from the city. This medical attention brings genuine improvement to Kitty's condition. The following summer, Maurice finds her sitting up, able to use her imperfectly healed hands with less pain, cheerful and engaged with new patterns for her craftwork — including a magazine subscription Maurice has arranged as a gift. Maurice also begins attending the local school, and an episode there tests his developing patience and moral character directly. He is falsely accused by a classmate named Jimmy Barnard of a disrespectful prank against their teacher. Despite knowing himself innocent, Maurice faces the teacher's cold suspicion for several days. He returns to Kitty, who counsels him with scriptural passages about bearing unjust suffering patiently and returning kindness for unkindness. Maurice follows this advice, treating Jimmy and his teacher with continued goodwill. Within days, the teacher overhears Jimmy boasting of his own guilt and publicly vindicates Maurice before the entire school. The story closes with Maurice rushing home to tell his mother that patience has been vindicated, asking whether God is pleased with him. His mother assures him that both God and she are. Throughout, the narrative presents patience not merely as passive endurance but as an active virtue requiring repeated effort, spiritual support, and conscious choice — illustrated through the contrast between Maurice's incremental growth and the more fully realized example of Kitty, whose suffering has refined her into a blessing to all who know her.
By Madeline Leslie · First published 1858 · Genre: Children's Literature, Moral/Ethical Fiction, Didactic Fiction · 9 chapters