When I mentioned this incident to one of his teachers and remarked that I didn't know what caused the changes, she said laughing. "It must be his coat!" Another teacher told him she was giving him a good mark not only because he had earned it but because she liked his coat. At the library, we ran into a friend who had not seen our children in a long time, “Could this be John?" he asked, looking up to John's new height, assessing the cut of his coat and extending his hand, one gentleman to another.
當我對他的一個老師提起這件事，并說我不知道這是為什么時，她笑著說：“一定是因為他的大衣！”另一個老師告訴他，她要給他一個好成績，不僅僅因為他理應獲得，還因為她喜歡他的大衣。在圖書館里我們遇見了一位朋友，他已經很長時間沒有看見我們的孩子了。看著約翰長高的個子，品評著他大衣的樣式，這位朋友不禁問道：“這是約翰嗎？” 同時向約翰伸出了手，完全是紳士間的行為。

John and I both know we should never mistake a person's clothes for the real person within them. But there is something to be said for wearing a standard of excellence for the world to see, for practising standards of excellence in though, speech, and behaviour, and for matching what is on the inside to what is on the outside.
約翰和我都知道不應該以貌取人，可穿著優雅為世人看，在思想上、言語上、行動上實踐優秀的標準，以達到內外的和諧統一，這又另當別論。

Sometimes, watching John leave for school, I've remembered with a keen sting what it felt like to be in the eighth grade -- a time when it was as easy to try on different approaches to life as it was to try on a coat. The whole world, the whole future is stretched out ahead, a vast panorama where all the doors are open. And if I were there right now, I would picture myself walking through those doors wearing my wonderful, magical coat.
有時看著約翰上學去，我就不禁怦然心動，想起自己上8年級時的感覺——那時嘗試不同的生活方式就如同試衣服一樣簡單。整個世界、整個未來在你面前展開，猶如一幅巨大的畫卷，那里的每一扇門都敞開著。如果此刻我能回到那兒，我會在這些門間穿行，身上就穿著那件奇妙的、帶有魔力的大衣。