A group of fisher-women who were on their way home from a distant market held on an afternoon, were overtaken by a heavy hail-storm at nightfall and were compelled to take shelter in a florist's cottage nearby. Their kindly host allowed them to sleep that night in a room where he had kept some baskets of sweet-smelling flowers for supplying his customers on the morrow. The atmosphere of the room, filled with the fragrance of flowers, was too good for the fisher-women and they could not, therefore, get even a wink of sleep. At last one of them suggested a remedy. "Let us sprinkle," she said, "a little water on our empty fish-baskets and place them close to us. That would keep this troublesome smell of flowers from spoiling our sleep." Every one gladly agreed to the proposal and acted accordingly; and soon all began to snore. Such indeed is the power and influence of habit! The worldly soul brought up in and accustomed to materialistic thoughts and surroundings cannot breathe long in an atmosphere of purity and renunciation without feeling restlessness and discomfort.
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