1 files changed, 6404 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/4629.txt b/4629.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4aca377
--- /dev/null
+++ b/4629.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,6404 @@
+Project Gutenberg's Home Scenes, and Home Influence, by T. S. Arthur
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Home Scenes, and Home Influence
+       A Series of Tales and Sketches
+
+Author: T. S. Arthur
+
+Posting Date: August 18, 2009 [EBook #4629]
+Release Date: November, 2003
+First Posted: February 20, 2002
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOME SCENES, AND HOME INFLUENCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Charles Aldarondo.  HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+HOME SCENES, AND HOME INFLUENCE.
+
+A Series of Tales and Sketches.
+
+
+T. S. ARTHUR.
+
+
+
+
+PHILADELPHIA:
+
+1854.
+
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+MANY of the scenes presented in this volume are such as show the
+mother's influence with her children; a few include the marriage
+relation; and a few give other domestic pictures. In all will be
+found, we trust, motives for self-denial and right action in the
+various conditions of social life. Home is the centre of good as
+well as of bad influence. How much, then, depends on those to whom
+have been committed the sacred trust of giving to the home-circle
+its true power over the heart!
+
+This volume makes the fifth in "ARTHUR'S LIBRARY FOR THE HOUSEHOLD."
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+  TAKING COMFORT.
+  CHILDREN--A FAMILY SCENE.
+  LOSING ONE'S TEMPER.
+  TROUBLE WITH SERVANTS.
+  HAVEN'T THE CHANGE.
+  OLD MAIDS' CHILDREN.
+  THE MOTHER AND BOY.
+  THE CHRISTMAS PARTY.
+  IS SHE A LADY?
+  GOING INTO MOURNING.
+  IF THAT WERE MY CHILD.
+  I WILL!
+  A MOTHER'S INFLUENCE.
+  THE POWER OF PATIENCE.
+  AN OLD MAN'S RECOLLECTIONS.
+
+
+
+
+
+HOME SCENES.
+
+
+
+
+TAKING COMFORT.
+
+
+"REALLY, this is comfortable!" said I, glancing around the
+handsomely furnished parlour of my young friend Brainard, who had, a
+few weeks before, ventured upon matrimony, and was now making his
+first experiments in housekeeping.
+
+"Yes, it is comfortable," replied my friend. "The fact is, I go in
+for comforts."
+
+"I'm afraid George is a little extravagant," said the smiling bride,
+as she leaned towards her husband and looked tenderly into his face.
+
+"No, not extravagant, Anna," he returned; "all I want is to have
+things comfortable. Comfort I look upon as one of the necessaries of
+life, to which all are entitled. Don't you?"
+
+I was looking at a handsome new rose-wood piano when this question
+was addressed to me, and thinking about its probable cost.
+
+"We should all make the best of what we have," I answered, a little
+evasively; "and seek to be as comfortable as possible under all
+circumstances."
+
+"Exactly. That's my doctrine," said Brainard. "I'm not rich, and
+therefore don't expect to live in a palace, and have every thing
+around me glittering with silver and gold; but, out of the little I
+possess, shall endeavour to obtain the largest available dividend of
+comfort. Ain't I right?"
+
+"Perhaps so."
+
+"You speak coldly," said my friend. "Don't you agree with me? Should
+not every man try to be as comfortable as his means will permit?"
+
+"Yes, certainly."
+
+"Of course he should. Some men set a value upon money above every
+thing else, and sacrifice all comfort to its accumulation; but I
+don't belong to that class. Money is a good gift, because it is the
+means of procuring natural blessings. I receive it thankfully, and
+use it wisely. You see how I am beginning life."
+
+"I do."
+
+"Well, what do you think of it?"
+
+By this time my observation of things had become more particular,
+and I saw many evidences of expenditures that indicated a lavish
+spirit.
+
+"What rent do you pay?" I asked.
+
+"Three hundred."
+
+I shook my head.
+
+"Too much?" said Brainard.
+
+"I think so."
+
+"Perhaps it is a little high. But you can't get a genteel,
+comfortable house, in a good neighbourhood, for any thing less."
+
+As it was my first visit to the young couple, who were but a few
+weeks past their honey-moon, I did not feel like questioning the
+propriety of my friend's conduct to the serious extent he was about
+involving himself; and so evaded replying to this excuse for taking
+at least a hundred dollars more rent upon himself than he was
+justified in doing by his circumstances, he being simply a clerk,
+with a salary of one thousand dollars.
+
+"Rents are high," was my apparently indifferent answer.
+
+"Too high," said he. "A man who wants a pleasant house has to pay
+for it. This is my experience."
+
+The subject of conversation changed; I passed an agreeable evening;
+at the close of which I left my friend and his lovely young bride in
+their comfortable home.
+
+What I had seen and heard during the few hours spent with Brainard
+made me fear that he was about committing a too common error. His
+ideas of comfort were not in keeping with his circumstances. Some
+days subsequently I saw my friend and his wife riding out in a
+handsome vehicle, drawn by a gay horse.
+
+"Taking their comfort," said I, as I paused and looked upon the
+happy young couple.
+
+Not long after, I saw them dashing off again to enjoy an afternoon's
+ride. Next, I met them at a fashionable concert.
+
+"Have you been to the opera yet?" asked Brainard, leaning forward to
+the seat that I occupied just in front of him.
+
+"No," was my answer.
+
+"Then there is a treat in store for you. We go twice, and sometimes
+oftener, every week. Truffi, Benedetti, Rosi--oh! they are
+enchanting."
+
+"Rather expensive," said I.
+
+"It does cost something," and Brainard shrugged his shoulders. "But
+I think it's money well spent. You know that I go in for the
+comforts of life."
+
+And he leaned back, while I thought I perceived a slight shadow flit
+across his face. A singer came forward at the moment, and no more
+was said.
+
+"It is possible," thought I, "in seeking after comfort, to get into
+the wrong road. I am afraid my young friends are about committing
+this error."
+
+I not only suggested as much to Brainard soon afterwards, but
+actually presented a serious remonstrance against the course of life
+he had adopted. But he only smiled at the fears I expressed, and
+said he understood perfectly the nature of the ground he was
+treading. Thus it is with most young persons. Be their views true or
+false, they act upon them, in spite of all counsel from the more
+experienced, and in the end reap their harvest of trouble or
+pleasure, as the ease may be. Pride, which stimulates the desire to
+make a certain appearance in the world, is generally more at fault
+than a wish to secure the comforts of which my friend talked so
+much.
+
+I had another acquaintance, by the name of Tyler, who was married
+about the same time with Brainard. His tastes were as well
+cultivated as those of the former, and his income was as large; yet,
+in beginning the world, he had shown more prudence and a wise
+forecast. I found him in a small, neat house, at a rent of one
+hundred and seventy dollars. His furniture was not costly, but in
+good taste and keeping with the house and his circumstances. As for
+real comfort, as far as I could see, the preponderance was rather in
+his favour.
+
+"This is really comfortable," said I, glancing around the room in
+which he received me on the occasion of my first visit.
+
+"We think so," replied my friend, smiling.
+
+"Nothing very elegant, but as good as we can afford, and with that
+we have made up our minds to be content."
+
+"If all the world were as wise, all the world would be happier," I
+remarked.
+
+"Perhaps so," returned Tyler. "Brainard tried to get me into a house
+like the one he occupies; but I thought it more prudent to cut my
+garment according to my cloth. The larger your house, the more
+costly your furniture and the higher your regular expenses. He
+talked about having things comfortable, as he called it, and
+enjoying life as he went along; but it would be poor comfort for me
+to know that I was five or six hundred dollars in debt, and all the
+while living beyond my income."
+
+"In debt? What do you mean by that?" said I. "It isn't possible that
+Brainard has gone in debt for any of his fine furniture?"
+
+"It is very possible."
+
+"To the extent of five or six hundred dollars?"
+
+"Yes. The rose-wood piano he bought for his wife cost four hundred
+dollars. It was purchased on six months' credit."
+
+"Foolish young man!" said I.
+
+"You may well say that. He thinks a great deal about the comforts of
+life; but he is going the wrong way to secure them, in my opinion.
+His parlour furniture, including the new piano, cost nearly one
+thousand dollars; mine cost three hundred; and I'm sure I would not
+exchange comforts with him. It isn't what is around us so much as
+what is within us, that produces pleasure. A contented mind is said
+to be a continual feast. If, in seeking to have things comfortable,
+we create causes of disquietude, we defeat our own ends."
+
+"I wish our friend Brainard could see things in the same light,"
+said I.
+
+"Nothing but painful experience will open his eyes," remarked Tyler.
+
+And he was correct in this. Brainard continued to take his comfort
+for a few months, although there was a gradual sinking in the
+thermometer of his feelings as the time approached when the notes
+given for a part of his furniture would fall due. The amount of
+these notes was six hundred dollars, but he had not saved fifty
+towards meeting the payments. The whole of his income had been used
+in taking his comfort.
+
+"Why, Brainard!" said I, in a tone of surprise, on meeting him one
+day, nearly six months after his marriage. "What has happened?"
+
+"Happened? Nothing. Why do you ask?" replied the young man.
+
+"You look troubled."
+
+"Do I?" He made an effort to smile.
+
+"Yes, you certainly do. What has gone wrong with you?"
+
+"Oh, nothing." And he tried to assume an air of indifference; but,
+seeing me look incredulous, he added--
+
+"Nothing particularly wrong. I'm only a little worried about money
+matters. The fact is, I've got two or three notes to pay next week."
+
+"You have?"
+
+"Yes; and what is more, I haven't the means to lift them."
+
+"That is trouble," said I, shaking my head.
+
+"It's trouble for me. Oh, dear! I wish my income were larger. A
+thousand dollars a year is too little."
+
+"Two persons ought to live on that sum very comfortably," I
+remarked.
+
+"We can't, then; and I'm sure we are not extravagant. Ah, me!"
+
+"I spent the evening with our friend Tyler last week," said I. "His
+salary is the same as yours, and he told me that he found it not
+only sufficient for all his wants, but that he could lay by a couple
+of hundred dollars yearly."
+
+"I couldn't live as he does," said Brainard, a little impatiently.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Do you think I would be cooped up in such a pigeon-box of a place?"
+
+"The house he lives in has six rooms, and he has but three in
+family--your own number, I presume"--
+
+"I have four," said Brainard, interrupting me.
+
+"Four?"
+
+"Yes. We have a cook and chambermaid."
+
+"Oh! Mrs. Tyler has but one domestic."
+
+"My wife wasn't brought up to be a household drudge," said Brainard,
+contemptuously.
+
+"Your house has ten rooms in it, I believe?" said I, avoiding a
+reply to his last remark.
+
+"It has."
+
+"But why should you pay rent for ten rooms, when you have use for
+only five or six? Is not that a waste of money that might be applied
+to a better purpose?"
+
+"Oh, I like a large house," said my friend, tossing his head, and
+putting on an air of dignity and consequence. "A hundred dollars
+difference in rent is a small matter compared with the increase of
+comfort it brings."
+
+"But the expense doesn't stop with the additional rent," said I.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"The larger the house, the more expensive the furniture. It cost you
+a thousand dollars to fit up your handsome parlour?" said I.
+
+"Yes, I presume it did."
+
+"For what amount did you give your notes?"
+
+"For six hundred dollars."
+
+"On account of furniture?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Tyler furnished his parlour for three hundred."
+
+There was another gesture of impatience on the part of my young
+friend, as he said--
+
+"And such furnishing!"
+
+"Every thing looks neat and comfortable," I replied.
+
+"It may do for them, but it wouldn't suit us."
+
+"Whatever is accordant with our means should be made to suit us,"
+said I, seriously. "You are no better off than Tyler."
+
+"Do you think I could content myself in such a place?" he replied.
+
+"Contentment is only found in the external circumstances that
+correspond to a man's pecuniary ability," was my answer to this.
+"Which, think you, is best contented? Tyler, in a small house,
+neatly furnished, and with a hundred dollars in his pocket; or you,
+in your large house, with a debt of six hundred dollars hanging over
+you?"
+
+There was an instant change in my friend's countenance. The question
+seemed to startle him. He sighed, involuntarily.
+
+"But all this won't lift my notes," said he, after the silence of a
+few minutes. "Good morning!"
+
+Poor fellow! I felt sorry for him. He had been buying comfort at
+rather too large a price.
+
+The more Brainard cast about in his mind for the means of lifting
+his notes, the more troubled did he become.
+
+"I might borrow," said he to himself; "but how am I to pay back the
+sum?"
+
+To borrow, however, was better than to let his notes be dishonoured.
+So Brainard, as the time of payment drew nearer and nearer, made an
+effort to get from his friends the amount of money needed.
+
+But the effort was not successful. Some looked surprised when he
+spoke of having notes to meet; others ventured a little good advice
+on the subject of prudence in young men who are beginning the world,
+and hinted that he was living rather too fast. None were prepared to
+give him what he wanted.
+
+Troubled, mortified, and humbled, Brainard retired to his
+comfortable home on the evening before the day on which his note
+given for the piano was to fall due. Nearly his last effort to raise
+money had been made, and he saw nothing but discredit, and what he
+feared even worse than that before him. Involved as he was in debt,
+there was no safety from the sharp talons of the law. They might
+strike him at any moment, and involve all in ruin.
+
+Poor Brainard! How little pleasure did the sight of his large and
+pleasant house give him as it came in view on his return home. It
+stood, rather as a monument of extravagance and folly, than the
+abode of sweet contentment.
+
+"Three hundred dollars rent!" he murmured. "Too much for me to pay."
+And sighed deeply.
+
+He entered his beautiful parlour, and gazed around upon the elegant
+furniture which he had provided as a means of comfort. All had lost
+its power to communicate pleasure. There stood the costly piano,
+once coveted and afterwards admired. But it possessed no charm to
+lay the troubled spirit within him. He had bought it as a marriage
+present for his wife, who had little taste for music, and preferred
+reading or sewing to the blandishment of sweet sounds. And for this
+toy--it was little more in his family--a debt of four hundred
+dollars had been created. Had it brought him an equivalent in
+comfort? Far, very far from it.
+
+As Brainard stood in his elegant parlour, with troubled heart and
+troubled face, his wife came in with a light step.
+
+"George!" she exclaimed on seeing him, her countenance falling and
+her voice expressing anxious concern. "What is the matter? Are you
+sick?"
+
+"Oh, no!" he replied, affecting a lightness of tone.
+
+"But something is the matter, George," said the young wife, as she
+laid her hand upon him and looked earnestly into his face.
+"Something troubles you."
+
+"Nothing of any consequence. A mere trifle," returned Brainard,
+evasively.
+
+"A mere trifle would not cloud your brow as it was clouded a moment
+since, George."
+
+"Trifles sometimes affect us, more seriously than graver matters."
+As Brainard said this, the shadows again deepened on his face.
+
+"If you have any troubles, dear, let me share them, and they will be
+lighter." Anna spoke with much tenderness.
+
+"I hardly think your sharing my present trouble will lighten it,"
+said Brainard, forcing a smile, "unless, in so doing, you can put
+some four hundred dollars into my empty pockets."
+
+Anna withdrew a pace from her husband, and looked at him doubtingly.
+
+"Do you speak in earnest?" said she.
+
+"In very truth I do. To-morrow I have four hundred dollars to pay;
+but where the money is to come from, is more than I can tell."
+
+"How in the world has that happened?" inquired Mrs. Brainard.
+
+Involuntarily the eyes of her husband wandered towards the piano.
+She saw their direction. Her own eyes fell to the floor, and she
+stood silent for some moments--silent, but hurriedly thoughtful.
+Then looking up, she said, in a hesitating voice--
+
+"We can do without that." And she pointed towards the piano.
+
+"Without what?" asked Brainard, quickly.
+
+"The piano. It cost four hundred dollars. Sell it."
+
+"Never!"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Don't mention it, Anna. Sell your piano! It shall never be done."
+
+"But, George"--
+
+"It's no use to talk of that, Anna; I will not listen to it."
+
+And so the wife was silenced.
+
+Little comfort had the young couple that evening in their finely
+furnished house. Brainard was silent and thoughtful, while Anna felt
+the pressure of a heavy weight upon her feelings.
+
+How different was it in the smaller and more plainly attired
+dwelling of Tyler! There was comfort, and there were peace and
+contentment, her smiling handmaids.
+
+On the next morning, Brainard found it impossible to conceal from
+his wife the great anxiety he felt. She said very little to him, for
+his trouble was of a kind for which she could suggest no remedy.
+After he parted with her at the door, she returned and sat down in
+one of the parlours to think. The piano was before her, and back to
+that her thoughts at length came. It was not only a beautiful
+instrument, but one of great excellence. Often had it been admired
+by her friends, and particularly by a lady who had several times
+expressed a wish to own one exactly like it in every respect.
+
+"I wish you would let me have that piano," the lady had said to her
+not a week before; and said it as much in earnest as in jest.
+
+"I wonder if she really would buy it?" mused Mrs. Brainard. "I don't
+want so fine an instrument. My old piano is a very good one, and is
+useless at father's. Oh! if I could only get George the four hundred
+dollars he wants so badly!"
+
+And she struck her hands together as her thoughts grew earnest on
+the subject. For more than an hour the mind of Mrs. Brainard gave
+itself up to this one idea. Then she dressed herself and went out.
+Without consulting any one, she called upon the lady to whom
+reference has been made.
+
+"Mrs. Aiken," said she, coming at once to the point, "you have often
+remarked that you would like to own that piano of mine. Were you
+really in earnest?"
+
+"In earnest? Certainly I was." Mrs. Aiken smiled, at the same time
+that a slight expression of surprise came into her face. "It's one
+of the finest instruments I ever touched."
+
+"It's for sale," said Mrs. Brainard, in a firm, business-like way.
+"So there is a chance for you to call it your own."
+
+"For sale! Why do you say that, Anna?"
+
+"It's too costly an instrument for me to own. My old piano is a very
+good one--quite good enough for all my purposes."
+
+"But this is your husband's wedding-gift, if I remember rightly?"
+
+"I know it is; but the gift was too costly a one for a young man
+whose salary is only a thousand dollars a year."
+
+"Then he wishes to sell it."
+
+"No, indeed, not he!"
+
+"And would you sell it without consulting him?" said Mrs. Aiken.
+
+"Such is my intention."
+
+"He might be very much displeased."
+
+"No matter; I would soon smooth his frowning brow. But, Mrs. Aiken,
+we won't discuss that matter. The instrument is to be sold. Do you
+want it?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"Very well. Are you prepared to buy it?"
+
+"Perhaps so. It cost four hundred dollars?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What is your price?"
+
+"The same."
+
+"Then you make no deduction?" said Mrs. Aiken, smiling.
+
+"I wouldn't like to do that. It's as good as new. If I can sell it,
+I want to be able to put in my husband's hands just what he paid for
+it."
+
+"Oh, then you want the money for your husband?"
+
+"Certainly, I do. What use have I for four hundred dollars?"
+
+"You've come just in time, Anna," said Mrs. Aiken. "I arranged with
+my husband to meet him this morning, at his store, to go and look at
+some pianos. But if yours is really for sale, we have no occasion to
+take any further trouble."
+
+"It is for sale, Mrs. Aiken. Understand this."
+
+"Very well. When do you want the money?"
+
+"This morning."
+
+"I don't know about that. However, I will see Mr. Aiken
+immediately."
+
+"Shall I wait here for you?"
+
+"You may do so, or I will call at your house."
+
+"Do that, if you please."
+
+"Very well. In an hour, at most, I will see you."
+
+The two ladies then parted.
+
+When Mr. Brainard left his house that morning, he felt wretched.
+Where--how was he to get four hundred dollars? To go to the party
+from whom he had bought the piano, and confess that he was not able
+to pay for it, had in it something so humiliating, that he could not
+bear the thought for a moment. But if the note was not paid,--what
+then? Might not the instrument be demanded? And how could he give it
+up now? Or, worse, might it not be seized under execution?
+
+"Oh, that I had never bought it!" he at length exclaimed, mentally,
+in the bitterness of his feelings. And then he half chid himself for
+the extorted declaration.
+
+Nearly the whole of the morning was spent in the vain attempt to
+borrow the needed sum. But there was no one to lend him four hundred
+dollars. At length, in his desperation, he forced himself to apply
+for a quarter's advance of salary.
+
+"No doubt," said he, within himself, "that the holder of the note
+will take two hundred and fifty dollars on account, and give me time
+on the balance."
+
+About the ways and means of living for the next three months, after
+absorbing his salary in advance, he did not pause to think. He was
+just in that state of mind in which he could say, with feeling,
+"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." Unhappily, his effort
+to raise money by this expedient failed. His application was
+received coldly, and in a way to mortify him exceedingly.
+
+Half desperate, and half despairing, Brainard started for his home
+about one o'clock, his usual hour for dining. What was he to do? He
+turned his thoughts to the right and to the left, groping about like
+a man in the dark. But no light broke in upon his mental vision.
+
+"It will not do to meet Anna in this way," said he, as he approached
+his own door. "I left her with a troubled countenance in the
+morning. Now I must force an assumed cheerfulness."
+
+He entered, and was moving along the passage, when Anna came out
+through one of the parlour doors to meet him, and drawing her arm
+through his, said, in a lively tone,--
+
+"Come, George, I want to play for you a favourite piece. I've been
+practising it for the last hour."
+
+And she drew him into the parlour, and, taking her seat at the
+piano, commenced running her fingers over the keys. Brainard stood
+and listened to the music until the piece was finished, trying, but
+in vain, to feel an interest in the performance.
+
+"How do you like that?" said the wife, with animation, lifting her
+sparkling eyes to the face of her husband, which was serious, in
+spite of all he could do to give it a better expression.
+
+"Beautifully performed," replied Brainard.
+
+"And do you really think so?" said Anna, as she arose and leaning on
+his arm again, drew him into the next room.
+
+"Certainly, I do."
+
+"Didn't you think the instrument a little out of tune?" asked Anna.
+
+"No; it struck me as being in better tune than when you played last
+evening."
+
+"It's a fine instrument, certainly. I prize it very much."
+
+Brainard sighed faintly.
+
+"Oh! How about your four hundred dollars?" said Anna, as if the
+thought had just occurred to her. "Did you get the money?"
+
+A change was apparent in the manner of Brainard.
+
+"No, Anna," he replied, with assumed calmness.
+
+"Do you want it badly?"
+
+"Yes, dear. I have four hundred dollars due in the bank to-day, and
+every effort to obtain the sum has failed."
+
+"What if I lend it to you?" said the young wife, looking archly into
+his troubled face.
+
+"You!" he exclaimed, quickly.
+
+"Yes, me. Would you take it as a very great favour?"
+
+"The greatest you could do me just at this time!"
+
+"Very well; here is the money."
+
+And Anna drew a purse of gold from her pocket, and held it before
+his eyes.
+
+"Anna! What does this mean?"
+
+And Brainard reached his hand to grasp the welcome treasure. But she
+drew it away quickly, saying, as she did so,--
+
+"Certain conditions must go with the loan."
+
+"Name them," was promptly answered by the husband, into whose face
+the sunshine had already come back.
+
+"One is, that you are not to be angry with me for any thing that I
+have done to-day."
+
+"What have you done?"
+
+And Brainard glanced around the room with an awakened suspicion.
+
+"I want your promise first."
+
+"You have it."
+
+"But mind you, I am in earnest," said Anna.
+
+"So am I. Now make your confession."
+
+"I sold the piano."
+
+"What?"
+
+There was an instant change in the expression of Brainard's face.
+
+"Your promise. Remember," said Anna, in a warning voice.
+
+"Sold the piano!"
+
+And he walked into the next room, Anna moving by his side.
+
+"Yes, I sold it to Mrs. Aiken for four hundred dollars. I had my old
+instrument brought over from father's. This is as good a piano as I
+want, or you either, I should think, seeing that you perceived no
+difference in its tones from the one I parted with. Now, take this
+purse, and if you don't call me the right sort of a wife you are a
+very strange man--that is all I have to say."
+
+Surprise kept Brainard silent for some moments. He looked at the
+piano, then at his wife, and then at the purse of gold, half
+doubting whether all were real, or only a pleasant dream.
+
+"You are the right sort of a wife, Anna, and no mistake," said he,
+at length, drawing his arm around her neck and kissing her. "You
+have done what I had not the courage to do, and, in the act, saved
+me from a world of trouble. The truth is, I never should have bought
+that piano. A clerk, with a salary of only a thousand dollars, is
+not justified in expending four hundred dollars for a piano."
+
+"Nor in having so much costly furniture," said Anna, glancing round
+the room.
+
+Brainard sighed, for the thought of two hundred dollars yet to pay
+flitted through his mind.
+
+"Nor in paying three hundred dollars for rent," added Anna.
+
+"Why do you say that?" asked Brainard.
+
+"Because it's the truth. The fact is, George, I'm afraid we're in
+the wrong road for comfort."
+
+"Perhaps we are," was the young man's constrained admission.
+
+"Then the quicker we get into the right way the better. Don't you
+think so?"
+
+"If we, are wrong, we should try to get right," said Brainard.
+
+"It was wrong to buy that piano. This is your own admission."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"We are right again in that respect."
+
+"Yes, thanks to my dear wife's good resolution and prompt action."
+
+"It was wrong to take so costly a house," said Anna.
+
+"I couldn't find a cheaper one that was genteel and comfortable."
+
+"I'm sure I wouldn't ask any thing more genteel and comfortable than
+Mrs. Tyler's house."
+
+"That pigeon-box!"
+
+Brainard spoke in, a tone of contempt.
+
+"Why, George, how you talk! It's a perfect gem of a house, well
+built and well finished in every part, and big enough for a family
+twice as large as ours. I think it far more comfortable than this
+great barn of a place, and would a thousand times rather live in it.
+And then it is cheaper by a hundred and twenty dollars a year."
+
+A hundred and twenty dollars! What a large sum of money. Ah, if he
+had a hundred and twenty dollars in addition to the four hundred
+received from Anna, how happy he would be! These were the thoughts
+that were flitting through the mind of Brainard at the mention of
+the amount that could be saved by taking a smaller house.
+
+"Well, Anna, perhaps you are right. Oh, dear!"
+
+"Why do you sigh so heavily, George?" asked Mrs. Brainard, looking
+at her husband with some surprise.
+
+"Because I can't help it," was frankly answered.
+
+"You've got the money you needed?"
+
+"Not all."
+
+"Why, George! Didn't you say that you had only four hundred dollars
+to pay?"
+
+"I didn't say only."
+
+"How much more?"
+
+"The fact is, Anna, I have two hundred dollars yet to meet."
+
+"To-day?"
+
+Anna's face became troubled.
+
+"No, not until the day after to-morrow."
+
+The young wife's countenance lighted up again.
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"Yes, thank Heaven, that is all. But how the payment is to be made,
+is more than I can tell."
+
+Dinner was now announced.
+
+"I shall have to turn financier again," said Anna, smiling, as she
+drew her arm within that of her husband, and led him away to the
+dining-room.
+
+"I'm a little afraid of your financiering," returned her husband,
+shaking his head. "You might sell me next as a useless piece of
+furniture."
+
+"Now, George, that is too bad," replied Anna, looking hurt.
+
+"I only jested, dear," said Brainard, repairing the little wrong
+done to her feelings with a kiss. "Your past efforts at financiering
+were admirable, and I only hope your next attempt may be as
+successful."
+
+Two days more passed, during which time neither Brainard nor his
+wife said any thing to each other about money, although the thoughts
+of both were busy for most of the time on that interesting subject.
+Silently sat Brainard at the breakfast-table on the morning of the
+day when his last note fell due. How was he to meet the payment? Two
+hundred dollars! He had not so much as fifty dollars in his
+possession, and as to borrowing, that was a vain hope. Must he go to
+the holder of the note, and ask a renewal? He shrunk from the
+thought, murmuring to himself--"Any thing but that."
+
+As for getting the required sum through Anna, he did not permit
+himself to hope very strongly. She had looked thoughtful since their
+last interview on the subject, and at times, it seemed to him,
+troubled. It was plain that she had been disappointed in any efforts
+to get money that she might have made.
+
+"That she, too, should be subject to mortification and painful
+humiliation!" said he, as his mind dwelt on the subject. "It is too
+bad--too bad!--Oh, to think that my folly should have had this
+reaction!"
+
+Anna looked sober as Brainard parted with her after breakfast, and
+he thought he saw tears in her eyes. As soon as he was gone she
+dressed herself, and taking from a handsome jewel-box the present of
+her husband, a gold watch and chain, a bracelet, diamond pin, and
+some other articles of the same kind, left the house.
+
+Two hours afterward, as Brainard sat at his desk trying to fix his
+mind upon the accounts before him, a note was handed in bearing his
+address. He broke the seal, and found that it enclosed one hundred
+and seventy dollars, with these few words from Anna:
+
+"This is the best I can do for you, dear husband. Will it be
+enough?"
+
+"God bless her!" came half audibly from the lips of Brainard, as he
+drew forth his pocket-book, in which were thirty dollars. "Yes, it
+will be enough."
+
+"There is no comfort in owing, or in paying after this fashion,"
+said the young man to himself, as he walked homeward at dinner-time,
+with his last note in his pocket. "There will have to be a change."
+
+And there was a change. When next I visited my young friend, I found
+him in a smaller house, looking as comfortable and happy as I could
+have wished to see him. We talked pleasantly about the errors of the
+past, and the trouble which had followed as a natural result.
+
+"There is one thing," said Brainard, during the conversation,
+glancing at his wife as he spoke, "that I have not been able to make
+out."
+
+"What is that?" asked Mrs. Brainard, smiling.
+
+"Where the last one hundred and seventy dollars you gave me came
+from."
+
+"Have you missed nothing?" said she, archly.
+
+"Nothing," was his reply.
+
+"Been deprived of no comfort?"
+
+"So far from it, I have found a great many new ones."
+
+"And been saved the trouble of winding up and regulating that pretty
+eight-day clock for which you gave forty dollars."
+
+Brainard fairly started to his feet as he turned to the mantel, and,
+strange to say, missed, for the first time, the handsome timepiece
+referred to by his wife.
+
+"Why, Anna, is it possible? Surely that hasn't been gone for two
+months!"
+
+"Oh, yes, it has."
+
+"Well, that beats all."
+
+And Brainard resumed his chair.
+
+"You've been just as comfortable," said the excellent young woman.
+
+"But you didn't get a hundred and seventy dollars for the
+timepiece?"
+
+"No. Have you lost no other comfort? Think."
+
+Brainard thought, but in vain. Anna glided from the room, and
+returned in a few moments with her jewel-box.
+
+"Do you miss any thing?" said she, as she raised the lid and placed
+the box in his hands.
+
+"Your watch and chain!"
+
+Anna smiled.
+
+"You did not sell them?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why, Anna! Did you set no value on your husband's gifts?"
+
+There was a slight rebuke in the tone of Brainard. Tears sprang to
+Anna's eyes, as she answered--"I valued them less than his
+happiness."
+
+Brainard looked at her for a few moments with an expression of deep
+tenderness. Then turning to me, he said, in a voice that was
+unsteady from emotion--"You shall be my judge. Has she done wrong or
+right?"
+
+"Right!" I responded, warmly. "Right! thank Heaven, my friend, for
+giving you a true woman for a wife. There is some hope now of your
+finding the comfort you sought so vainly in the beginning."
+
+And he has found it--found it in a wise appropriation, of the good
+gifts of Providence according to his means.
+
+
+
+
+CHILDREN--A FAMILY SCENE.
+
+
+"MOTHER!"
+
+"As I was saying"--
+
+"Mother!"
+
+"Miss Jones wore a white figured satin"--
+
+"Oh! mother!"
+
+"With short sleeves"--
+
+"Mother! mother!"
+
+"Looped up with a small rosebud"--
+
+"I say! mother! mother!"
+
+The child now caught hold of her mother's arm, and shook it
+violently, in her effort to gain the attention she desired, while
+her voice, which at first was low, had become loud and impatient.
+Mrs. Elder, no longer able to continue her account of the manner in
+which Miss Jones appeared at a recent ball, turned angrily toward
+little Mary, whose importunities had sadly annoyed her, and, seizing
+her by the arm, took her to the door and thrust her roughly from the
+room, without any inquiry as to what she wanted. The child screamed
+for a while at the door, and then went crying up-stairs.
+
+"Do what you will," said Mrs. Elder, fretfully, "you cannot teach
+children manners. I've talked to Mary a hundred times about
+interrupting me when I'm engaged in conversation with any one."
+
+"It's line upon line and precept upon precept," remarked the
+visitor. "Children are children, and we mustn't expect too much from
+them."
+
+"But I see other people's children sit down quietly and behave
+themselves when there is company."
+
+"All children are not alike," said the visitor. "Some are more
+restless and impetuous than others. We have to consult their
+dispositions and pay regard thereto, or it will be impossible to
+manage them rightly. I find a great difference among my own
+children. Some are orderly, and others disorderly. Some have a
+strong sense of propriety, and others no sense of propriety at all."
+
+"It's a great responsibility; is it not, Mrs. Peters?"
+
+"Very great."
+
+"It makes me really unhappy. I am sometimes tempted to wish them all
+in heaven; and then I would be sure they were well off and well
+taken care of. Some people appear to get along with their children
+so easy. I don't know how it is. I can't."
+
+Mrs. Peters could have given her friend a useful hint or two on the
+subject of managing children, if she had felt that she dared to do
+so. But she knew Mrs. Elder to be exceedingly sensitive, and
+therefore she thought it best not to say any thing that might offend
+her.
+
+There was a quiet-looking old gentleman in the room where the two
+ladies sat conversing. He had a book in his hand, and seemed to be
+reading; though, in fact, he was observing all that was said and
+done. He had not designed to do this, but the interruption of little
+Mary threw his mind off his book, and his thoughts entered a new
+element. This person was a brother of Mrs. Elder, and had recently
+become domesticated in her family. He was a bachelor.
+
+After the visitor had retired, Mrs. Elder sat down to her
+work-table in the same room where she had received her company, and
+resumed her sewing operations, which the call had suspended. She had
+not been thus engaged long, before Mary came back into the room,
+looking sad enough. Instead of going to her mother; she went up to
+the old gentleman, and looking into his face with her yet tearful
+eyes, said--
+
+"Uncle William?"
+
+"What, dear?" was returned in a kind voice.
+
+"Something sticks my neck. Won't you see what it is?"
+
+Uncle William laid down his book, and, turning down the neck of
+Mary's frock, found that the point of a pin was fretting her body.
+There was at least a dozen little scratches, and an inflamed spot
+the size of a dollar.
+
+"Poor child!" he said, tenderly, as he removed the pin. "There now!
+It feels better, doesn't it?"
+
+"Yes, it feels better; thank you, dear uncle!" and Mary put up her
+sweet lips and kissed him. The old gentleman was doubly repaid for
+his trouble. Mary ran lightly away, and he resumed his book.
+
+In about ten minutes, the child opened the door and came in pulling
+the dredging-box, to which she had tied a string, along the floor,
+and marking the progress she made by a track of white meal.
+
+"You little torment!" exclaimed the mother, springing up, and
+jerking the string and box angrily from Mary's hand. "It is too bad!
+you know well enough that you had no business to touch this. Just
+see what a condition the floor is in! Oh dear! Shall I never teach
+the child any thing?"
+
+Mrs. Elder took the dredging-box out into the kitchen, and gave the
+cook a sound scolding for permitting the child to have it. When she
+got back, Mary had her work-basket on the floor, rummaging through
+it for buttons and spools of cotton.
+
+"Now just see that!" she exclaimed again. "There now!" And little
+Mary's ears buzzed for half an hour afterwards from the sound box
+she received.
+
+After the child was thrust from the room, Mrs. Elder said,
+fretfully, "I'm out of all heart! I never saw such children. They
+seem ever bent on doing something wrong. Hark! what's that?"
+
+There was the crash of something falling over head, followed by a
+loud scream.
+
+Uncle William and Mrs. Elder both started from the room and ran
+up-stairs. Here they found Henry, a boy two years older than Mary,
+who was between three and four, lying on the carpet with a bureau
+drawer upon him, which he had, while turning topsy-turvy after
+something or other, accidentally pulled out upon him. He was more
+frightened than hurt, by a great deal.
+
+"Now just look at that!" ejaculated the outraged mother when the
+cause of alarm became apparent. "Just look at that, will you? Isn't
+it beyond all endurance! Haven't I told you a hundred times not to
+go near my drawers, ha? No matter if you'd been half killed! There,
+march out of the room as quick as you can go." And she seized Henry
+by the arm with a strong grip, and fairly threw him, in her anger,
+from the chamber.
+
+While she was yet storming, fretting, and fuming over the drawer,
+Uncle William retired from the apartment and, went down-stairs
+again. On entering the room he had left but a few minutes before, he
+found Mary at her mother's work-basket again, notwithstanding the
+box she had received only a short time before for the same fault.
+
+"Mary," said Uncle William to the child, in a calm, earnest, yet
+kind voice.
+
+The child took its hands from the basket and came up to her uncle.
+
+"Mary, didn't your mother tell you not to go to her basket?"
+
+"Yes, sir," replied Mary, looking steadily into her uncle's face.
+
+"Then why did you go?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"It was very wrong." Uncle William spoke seriously, and the child's
+face assumed a serious expression.
+
+"Will you do it any more?"
+
+"No, sir." Mary shrink close to her uncle, and her reply was in a
+whisper.
+
+"Be sure and not forget, Mary. Mother sews with her spools of
+cotton, and uses her scissors to make little Mary frocks and aprons,
+and if Mary takes any thing out of her work-basket, she can't do her
+sewing good. Will you remember?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Now don't forget."
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"And just see, Mary, how you have soiled the carpet with the
+dredging-box! Didn't you know the flour would come out and be
+scattered all over the floor?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"But now you know it."
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"You won't get the dredging-box any more?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+While this conversation was going on, Mrs. Elder came down, still
+feeling much excited. After Uncle William had said what he
+considered enough to Mary, he took up his book and commenced
+reading. The child stood leaning against him for five or ten
+minutes, and then ran out of the room.
+
+"How long do you suppose she will remember what you have said?"
+remarked Mrs. Elder, with a lightness of tone that showed her
+contempt for all such measures of reform.
+
+"Much longer than she will remember your box on the ear," was the
+blunt reply.
+
+"I doubt it. Words make no impression on children."
+
+"Harsh words make very little impression, I admit. For these close
+up, instead of entering the avenues to the mind. Kind words, and
+reasons for things, go a great way even with children. How long did
+Mary remember and profit by your sound rating and box on the ear
+(still red with the blow) into the bargain? Not over ten minutes;
+for when I came down-stairs, she had both hands into your basket
+again."
+
+"The little huzzy! It's well for her that I did not catch her at
+it!"
+
+"It is well indeed, Sarah, for you would, by your angry and unjust
+punishment, have done the little creature a serious injury. Did you
+ever explain to her the use of your work-basket and the various
+things in it, and make her comprehend how necessary it was to you to
+have every thing in order there, just as you placed it?"
+
+"Gracious, William! Do you think I haven't something else to do
+besides wasting time in explaining to children the use of every
+thing in my work-basket? What good would it do, I wonder?"
+
+"It would do a great deal of good, Sarah, you may rely upon it, and
+be a great saving of time into the bargain; for if you made your
+children properly comprehend the use of every thing around them, and
+how their meddling with certain things was wrong, because it would
+incommode you, you would find them far less disposed than now to put
+their hands into wrong places. Try it."
+
+"Nonsense! I wonder if I haven't been trying all my life to make
+them understand that they were not to meddle with things that didn't
+belong to them! And what good has it done?"
+
+"Very little, I must own; for I never saw children who had less
+regard to what their mother says than yours have."
+
+This touched Mrs. Elder a little. She didn't mind animadverting upon
+the defects of her children, but was ready to stand up in their
+defence whenever any one else found fault with them.
+
+"I reckon they are not the worst children in the world," she
+replied, rather warmly.
+
+"I should be sorry if they were. But they are not the best either,
+by a long way, although naturally as good children as are seen
+anywhere. It is your bad management that is spoiling them."
+
+"My management!"
+
+"Frankly, Sarah, I am compelled to affirm that it is. I have been in
+your house, now, for three or four months, and must say that I am
+surprised that your children are as good as they are. Don't be
+angry! Don't be fretted with me as you are with every thing in them
+that doesn't please you. I am old enough to hear reason as well as
+to talk reason. Let us go back to a point on which I wished to fix
+your attention, but from which we digressed. In trying to correct
+Mary's habit of rummaging in your work-basket, you boxed her ears,
+and stormed at her in a most unmotherly way. Did it do any good? No;
+for in ten minutes she was at the same work again. For this I talked
+to her kindly, and endeavoured to make her sensible that it was
+wrong to disturb your basket."
+
+"And much good it will do!" Mrs. Elder did not feel very amiable.
+
+"We shall see," said Uncle William, in his calm way. "Now I propose
+that we both go out of this room, and let Mary come into it, and be
+here alone for half an hour. My word for it, she doesn't touch your
+work-basket."
+
+"And my word for it, she goes to it the first thing."
+
+"Notwithstanding you boxed her ears for the same fault so recently?"
+
+"Yes, and notwithstanding you reasoned with her, and talked to her
+so softly but a few moments since."
+
+"Very well. The experiment is worth making, not to see who is right,
+but to see if a gentler mode of government than the one you have
+adopted will not be much better for your children. I am sure that it
+will."
+
+As proposed, the mother and Uncle William left the room, and Mary
+was allowed to go into it and remain there alone for half an hour.
+Long before this time had expired, Mrs. Elder's excited feelings had
+cooled off, and been succeeded by a more sober and reflective state
+of mind. At the end of the proposed period, Uncle William came down,
+and joining his sister, said--
+
+"Now, Sarah, let us go and see what Mary has been doing; but before
+we enter the room, let me beg of you not to show angry displeasure,
+nor to speak a harsh or loud word to Mary, no matter what she may
+have been about; for it will do no good, but harm. You have tried it
+long enough, and its ill effects call upon you to make a new
+experiment."
+
+Mrs. Elder, who was in a better state than she was half an hour
+before, readily agreed to this. They then went together into the
+room. As they entered, Mary looked up at them from the floor where
+she was, sitting, her face bright with smiles at seeing them.
+
+"You lit"--
+
+Uncle William grasped quickly the hand of his sister to remind her
+that she was not to speak harshly to Mary, no matter what she was
+doing, and was thus able to check the storm of angry reproof that
+was about to break upon the head of the child, who had been up to
+the book-case and taken, therefrom two rows of books, with which she
+was playing on the floor.
+
+"What are you doing, dear?" asked Uncle William, kindly.
+
+"Building a house," replied the child, the smiles that the sudden
+change in the mother's countenance had driven from her face, coming
+back and lighting up her beautiful young brow. "See here what a
+pretty house I have, uncle! And here is the fence, and these are
+trees."
+
+"So it is, a very pretty house," replied the uncle, while the mother
+could scarcely repress her indignation at the outrage Mary had
+committed upon the book-case.
+
+The uncle glanced toward the table, upon which the work-basket
+remained undisturbed. He then sat down, and said--"Come here, love."
+
+Mary got up and ran quickly to him.
+
+"You didn't touch mother's work-basket?" he said.
+
+"No, sir," replied Mary.
+
+"Why?"
+
+Mary thought a moment, and then said--"You told me not to do it any
+more."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because if I take the cotton and scissors, mother can't make aprons
+and frocks for Mary."
+
+"And if you go into her work-basket, you disturb every thing and
+make her a great deal of trouble. You won't do it any more?"
+
+"No, sir." And the child shook her head earnestly.
+
+"Didn't you know that it was also wrong to take the books out of the
+book-case? It not only hurts the books, but throws the room and the
+book-case into disorder."
+
+"I wanted to build a house," said Mary.
+
+"But books are to read, not to build houses with."
+
+"Won't you ask papa to buy me a box of blocks, like Hetty Green's,
+to build houses with?"
+
+"I'll buy them for you myself the next time I go out," replied Uncle
+William.
+
+"Oh, will you?" And Mary clapped her hands joyfully together.
+
+"But you must never disturb the books in the book-case any more."
+
+"No, sir," replied the child, earnestly.
+
+Mrs. Elder felt rebuked. To hide what was too plainly exhibited in
+her countenance, she stooped to the floor and commenced taking up
+the books and replacing them in the book-case.
+
+"Now go up into my room, Mary, and wait there until I come. I want
+to tell you something."
+
+The child went singing up-stairs as happy as she could be.
+
+"You see, Sarah, that kind words are more effective than harsh names
+with children. Mary didn't touch your work-basket."
+
+"But she went to the book-case, which was just as bad. Children must
+be in some mischief."
+
+"Not so bad, Sarah; for she had been made to comprehend why it was
+wrong to go to your basket, but not so of the book-case."
+
+"I'm sure I've scolded her about taking down the books fifty times,
+and still, every chance she can get, she's at them again."
+
+"You may have scolded her; but scolding a child and making it
+comprehend its error are two things. Scolding darkens the mind by
+arousing evil passions, instead of enlightening it with clear
+perceptions of right and, wrong. _No child is ever improved by
+scolding, but always injured_."
+
+"There are few children who are not injured, then. I should like to
+see a mother get along with a parcel of children without scolding
+them."
+
+"It is a sad truth, as you say, that there are but few children who
+are not injured by scolding. No cause is so active for evil among
+children as their mother's impatience, which shows itself from the
+first, and acts upon them through the whole period in which their
+minds are taking impressions and hardening into permanent forms.
+Like you, Sarah, our own mother had but little patience among her
+children, and you can look back and remember, as well as I, many
+instances in which this impatience led her into hasty and ill-judged
+acts and expressions that did us harm rather than good."
+
+"It's an easy thing to talk, William. An easy thing to say--Have
+patience."
+
+"I know it is, Sarah; and a very hard thing to compel ourselves to
+have patience. But, if a mother's love for her children be not
+strong enough to induce her to govern herself for their sakes, who
+shall seek their good? Who will make any sacrifice for them?"
+
+"Are you not afraid to trust Mary up in your room?" said Mrs. Elder,
+recollecting at the moment that Mary was alone there for a longer
+time than she felt to be prudent.
+
+"No. She will not trouble any thing."
+
+"I'd be afraid to trust her. She's a thoughtless, impulsive child,
+and might do some damage."
+
+"No danger. She understands perfectly what may be and what may not
+be touched in my room, and so do all the children in the house. I
+wouldn't be afraid to leave them all there for an hour."
+
+"You'd be afraid afterwards, I guess, if you were to try the
+experiment."
+
+"I am willing to try it."
+
+"You are welcome."
+
+"Henry! William!" Uncle William went to the door and called the
+children.
+
+Two boys came romping into the room.
+
+"Boys," he said, "Mary is up in my room, and I want you to go up and
+stay with her until I come."
+
+Away scampered the little fellows as merry as crickets.
+
+"They'll make sad work in your room, brother; and if they do, you
+mustn't blame me for it."
+
+"Oh, no, I shall not blame you, nor scold them, but endeavour to
+apply some corrective that will make them think, and determine never
+to do so again. However, I am pretty well satisfied that nothing
+will be disturbed."
+
+In less than an hour, Mrs. Elder and her brother went up to see what
+the children were about. They found them seated on the floor, with
+two or three loose packs of plain cards about them, out of which
+they were forming various figures, by laying them together upon the
+floor.
+
+"Why, children! How could you take your uncle's cards?" said Mrs.
+Elder reprovingly.
+
+"He lets us play with them, mother," replied the oldest boy, turning
+to his uncle with an appealing look.
+
+"You haven't touched any thing else?" said Uncle William.
+
+"No, sir, nothing else. We found Mary playing with the cards when we
+came up, and we've been playing with them ever since. You don't
+care, do you, Uncle William?"
+
+"No; for I've told you, you remember, that you might play with the
+cards whenever you wanted to."
+
+"Can't we play with them longer, Uncle William?" asked Mary.
+
+"Yes, my dear, you can play with them as long as you choose."
+
+Mrs. Elder and her brother turned away and went down-stairs.
+
+"I don't know how it is, William, that they behave themselves so
+well in your room, and act like so many young Vandals in every other
+part of the house."
+
+"It is plain enough, Sarah," replied her brother. "I never scold
+them, and never push them aside when they come to me, no matter what
+I'm engaged in doing. I never think a little time taken from other
+employments thrown away when devoted to children; and, therefore, I
+generally hear what they have to say, let them come to me when they
+will. Sometimes I am engaged in such a way that I must not be
+interrupted, and then I lock my door. I have explained this to them,
+and now the children, when they find my door locked, immediately go
+away. On admitting them into my room at first, I was very careful to
+tell them that such and such things must on no account be touched,
+and explain the reason why; at the same time I gave them free
+permission to play with other things that could sustain no serious
+injury. Only once or twice has any of them ventured to trespass on
+forbidden ground. But, instead of scolding, or even administering a
+reprimand, I forbade the one who had done wrong coming to my room
+for a certain time. In no case have I had to repeat the
+interdiction. If I can thus govern them in my room, I am sure you
+can do it in the whole house, if you go the right way about it."
+
+"You say that you always attend to them when they come to you?" said
+Mrs. Elder.
+
+"Yes. I try to do so, no matter how much I am engaged."
+
+"If I were to do that, I would be attending to them all the time. I
+couldn't sit a moment with a visitor, nor say three words to
+anybody. You saw how it was this morning. The moment I sat down to
+talk with Mrs. Peters, Mary came and commenced interrupting me at
+every word, until I was forced to put her from the room."
+
+"Yes, I saw it," replied the brother in a voice that plainly enough
+betrayed his disapproval of his sister's conduct in that particular
+instance.
+
+"And you think I ought to have neglected my visitor to attend to an
+ill-mannered child?"
+
+"I think, when Mary came to you, as she did, that you should have
+attended to her at once. If you had done so, you would have relieved
+her from pain, and saved yourself and visitor from a serious
+annoyance."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Don't you know what Mary wanted?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Is it possible! I thought you learned it when she came to me after
+Mrs. Peters had left.
+
+"No, I didn't know. What was the matter with her?"
+
+The brother stepped to the door and called for Mary, who presently
+came running down-stairs.
+
+"What do you want, uncle?" said she, as she came up to him and
+lifted her sparkling blue eyes to his face.
+
+"What were you going to ask your mother to do for you when Mrs.
+Peters was here this morning?"
+
+"A pin stuck me," replied the child, artlessly. "Don't you know that
+you took it out?"
+
+"Yes, so I did. Let me look at the place," and he turned down Mary's
+frock so that her mother could see the scratched and inflamed spot
+upon her neck.
+
+"Poor child!" said Mrs. Elder, the tears springing to her eyes as
+she stooped down and kissed the wounded place.
+
+"Are you playing with the cards yet, dear?" asked Uncle William.
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Do you want to play more?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Run along then." And Mary tripped lightly away.
+
+"When the child first spoke to you, Sarah, if you had paused to see
+what she wanted, all would have been right in a few minutes. Even if
+her request had been frivolous, by attending to it you would have
+satisfied her, and been in a much better frame of mind to entertain
+your friend."
+
+Mrs. Elder was silent. There was conviction in Mary's inflamed neck
+not to be resisted; and the conviction went to her heart.
+
+"We," said the old gentleman, "who have attained to the age of
+reason, expect children, who do not reflect, to act with all the
+propriety of men and women, and that too, without mild and correct
+instruction as to their duties. Are we not most to blame? They must
+regard our times, seasons, and conveniences, and we will attend to
+their ever active wants, when our leisure will best permit us to do
+so. Is it any wonder, under such a system, that children are
+troublesome? Would it not be a greater wonder were they otherwise?
+We must first learn self-government and self-denial before we can
+rightly govern children. After that, the task will be an easy one."
+
+Mrs. Elder stayed to hear no more, but, rising abruptly, went up
+into her chamber to think. When she appeared in her family, her
+countenance was subdued, and when she spoke, her voice was lower and
+more earnest. It was remarkable to see how readily her children
+minded when she spoke to them, and how affectionately they drew
+around her. Uncle William was delighted. In a few days, however, old
+habits returned, and then her brother came to her aid, and by timely
+uttered counsel gave her new strength. It was wonderful to see what
+an improvement three months had made, and at the end of a year no
+more loving and orderly household could be found. It took much of
+Mrs. Elder's time, and occupied almost constantly her thoughts; but
+the result well paid for all.
+
+Thinking that this every-day incident in the history of a friend
+would appeal strongly to some mother who has not yet learned to
+govern herself, or properly regard the welfare of her children, we
+have sketched it hastily, and send it forth in the hope that it may
+do good.
+
+
+
+
+LOSING ONE'S TEMPER.
+
+
+I WAS sitting in my room one morning, feeling all "out of sorts"
+about something or other, when an orphan child, whom I had taken to
+raise, came in with a broken tumbler in her hand, and said, while
+her young face was pale, and her little lip quivered,--
+
+"See, Mrs. Graham! I went to take this tumbler from the dresser to
+get Anna a drink of water, and I let it fall."
+
+I was in a fretful humour before the child came in, and her
+appearance, with the broken tumbler in her hand, did not tend to
+help me to a better state of mind. She was suffering a good deal of
+pain in consequence of the accident, and needed a kind word to quiet
+the disturbed beatings of her heart. But she had come to me in an
+unfortunate moment.
+
+"You are a careless little girl!" said I, severely, taking the
+fragments of glass from her trembling hands. "A very careless little
+girl, and I am displeased with you!"
+
+I said no more; but my countenance expressed even stronger rebuke
+than my words. The child lingered near me for, a few moments, and
+then shrunk away from the room. I was sorry, in a moment, that I had
+permitted myself to speak unkindly to the little girl; for there was
+no need of my doing so; and, moreover, she had taken my words, as I
+could see, deeply to heart. I had made her unhappy without a cause.
+The breaking of the tumbler was an accident likely to happen to any
+one and the child evidently felt bad enough about what had occurred,
+without having my displeasure added thereto.
+
+If I was unhappy before Jane entered my room I was still more
+unhappy after she retired. I blamed myself, and pitied the child;
+but this did not in the least mend the matter.
+
+In about half an hour, Jane came up very quietly with Willy, my dear
+little, curly-haired, angel-face boy, in her arms. He had fallen
+asleep, and she had, with her utmost strength, carried him
+up-stairs. She did not lift her eyes to mine as she entered, but
+went, with her burden, to the low bed that was in the room, where
+she laid him tenderly, and then sat down with her face turned partly
+away from me, and with a fan kept off the flies and cooled his moist
+skin.
+
+Enough of Jane's countenance was visible to enable me to perceive
+that its expression was sad. And it was an unkind word from my lips
+that had brought this cloud over her young face!
+
+"So much for permitting myself to fall into a fretful mood," said I,
+mentally. "In future I must be more watchful over my state of mind.
+I have no right to make others suffer from my own unhappy temper."
+
+Jane continued to sit by Willy and fan him; and every now and then I
+could hear a very low sigh come up, as if involuntarily, from her
+bosom. Faint as the sound was, it smote upon my ear, and added to my
+uncomfortable frame of mind.
+
+A friend called, and I went down into the parlour, and sat
+conversing there for an hour. But all the while there was a weight
+upon my feelings. I tried, but in vain, to be cheerful. I was too
+distinctly aware of the fact, that an individual--and that a
+motherless little girl--was unhappy through my unkindness; and the
+consciousness was like a heavy hand upon my bosom.
+
+"This is all a weakness," I said to myself, after my friend had
+left, making an effort to throw off the uncomfortable feeling. But
+it was of no avail. Even if the new train of thought, awakened by
+conversation with my friend, had lifted me above the state of mind
+in which I was when she came, the sight of Jane's sober face, as she
+passed me on the stairs, would have depressed my feelings again.
+
+In order both to relieve my own and the child's feelings, I thought
+I would refer to the broken tumbler, and tell her not to grieve
+herself about it, as its loss was of no consequence whatever. But
+this would have been to have made an acknowledgment to her that I
+had been in the wrong, and instinctive feeling of pride remonstrated
+against that.
+
+"Ah me!" I sighed. "Why did I permit myself to speak so unguardedly?
+How small are the cause that sometimes destroy our peace! How much
+good or evil is there in a single word!"
+
+Some who read this may think that I was very weak to let a hastily
+uttered censure against a careless child trouble me. What are a
+child's feelings?
+
+I have been a child; and, as a child, have been blamed severely by
+those whom I desired to please, and felt that unkind words fell
+heavier and more painfully, sometimes, than blows. I could,
+therfore, understand the nature of Jane's feelings, and sympathize
+with her to a certain extent.
+
+All through the day, Jane moved about more quietly than usual. When
+I spoke to her about any thing--which I did in a kinder voice than I
+ordinarily used--she would look into my face with an earnestness
+that rebuked me.
+
+Toward evening, I sent her down-stairs for a pitcher of cool water.
+She went quickly, and soon returned with the pitcher of water, and a
+tumbler, on a waiter. She was coming towards me, evidently using
+more than ordinary caution, when her foot tripped against something,
+and she stumbled forward. It was in vain that she tried to save the
+pitcher. Its balance was lost, and it fell over and was broken to
+pieces at my feet, the water dashing upon the skirt of my dress.
+
+The poor child became instantly as pale as ashes, and the frightened
+look she gave me I shall not soon forget. She tried to speak, and
+say that it was an accident, but her tongue was, paralyzed for the
+moment, and she found no utterance.
+
+The lesson I had received in the morning served me for purposes of
+self-control now, and I said, instantly, in a mild, voice--
+
+"Never mind, Jane; I know you couldn't help it. I must tack down
+that loose edge of the carpet. I came near tripping there myself
+to-day. Go and get a floor-cloth and wipe up the water as quickly as
+you can, while I gather up the broken pieces."
+
+The colour came back instantly to Jane's face. She gave me one
+grateful look, and then ran quickly away, to do as I had directed
+her. When she came back, she blamed herself for not having been more
+careful, expressed sorrow for the accident, and promised over and
+over again that she would be more guarded in future.
+
+The contrast between both of our feelings now and what they were in
+the morning, was very great. I felt happier for having acted justly
+and with due self-control; and my little girl, though troubled on
+account of the accident, had not the extra burden of my displeasure
+to bear.
+
+"Better, far better," said I to myself, as I sat and reflected upon
+the incidents just related--"better, far better is it, in all our
+relations in life, to maintain a calm exterior, and on no account
+speak harshly to those who are below us. Angry words make double
+wounds. They hurt those whom they are addressed, while they leave a
+sting behind them. Above all, should we guard against a moody
+temper. Whenever we permit any thing to fret our minds, we are not
+in a state to exercise due self-control, and if temptation comes
+then we are sure to fall."
+
+
+
+
+TROUBLE WITH SERVANTS
+
+
+"OH, dear Mrs. Graham!" said my neighbour Mrs. Jones to me one day,
+"what shall I do for good help? I am almost worried out of my
+senses. I wish somebody would invent a machine to cook, wash, scrub,
+and do housework in general. What a blessing it would be! As for the
+whole tribe of flesh and blood domestics, they are not worth their
+salt."
+
+"They are all poorly educated," I replied, "and we cannot expect
+much of them. Most of them have nearly every thing to learn when
+they come into our houses, and are bad scholars into the bargain.
+But we must have patience. I find it my only resource."
+
+"Patience!" ejaculated Mrs. Jones, warmly. "It would require more
+patience than Job ever possessed to get along with some of them."
+
+"And yet," said I, "we accomplish little or nothing by impatience.
+At least such is my experience."
+
+"I don't know, ma'am," replied Mrs. Jones. "If you go to being
+gentle and easy with them, if you don't follow them up at every
+point, you will soon have affairs in a pretty condition! They don't
+care a fig for your comfort nor interest--not they! In fact, more
+than half of them would, a thousand times, rather make things
+disagreeable for you than otherwise."
+
+"I know they are a great trial, sometimes," I answered, not feeling
+at liberty to say to my visitor all I thought. "But we must
+endeavour to bear it the best we can. That is my rule; and I find,
+in the long run, that I get on much better when I repress all
+exhibition of annoyance at their carelessness, short-comings,
+neglect, or positive misdeeds, than I do when I let them see that I
+am annoyed, or exhibit the slightest angry feeling."
+
+Not long after this, we accepted an invitation to take tea with Mr.
+and Mrs. Jones, and I then had an opportunity of seeing how she
+conducted herself towards her domestics. I was in no way surprised,
+afterwards, that she found difficulty in getting along with
+servants.
+
+Soon after my husband and myself went in, and while we were sitting
+in the parlour, Mrs. Jones had occasion to call a servant. I noticed
+that, when she rung the bell, she did so with a quick jerk; and I
+could perceive a tone of authority in the ting-a-ling of the bell,
+the sound of which was distinctly heard. Nearly two minutes passed
+before the servant made her appearance, in which time the bell
+received a more vigorous jerk. At last she entered, looking flushed
+and hurried.
+
+"What's the reason you did not come when I first rung?" inquired our
+lady hostess, in a severe tone.
+
+"I--I--came as quick as I could," replied the girl, with a look of
+mortification at being spoken to before strangers.
+
+"No, you didn't! It's your custom to wait until I ring twice. Now
+let this be the last time!"
+
+And then, in a low voice, Mrs. Jones gave the direction for which
+she had summoned her.
+
+"Such a set!" ejaculated the lady, as the girl left the room. Her
+words were intended to reach other ears besides ours; and so they
+did. "That girl," she continued, addressing me, "has a habit of
+making me ring twice. It really seems to give them pleasure, I
+believe, to annoy you. Ah, me! this trouble with servants is a never
+ending one. It meets you at every turn."
+
+And, for some time, she animadverted upon her favourite theme--for
+such it appeared to be,--until her husband, who was evidently
+annoyed, managed to change the subject of discourse. Once or twice
+she came back to it before tea-time.
+
+At last the tea bell rung, and we ascended to the dining-room. We
+were but fairly seated, when a frown darkened suddenly on the brow
+of our hostess, and her hand applied itself nervously to the
+table-bell.
+
+The girl who had set the table came up from the kitchen.
+
+"There is no sugar in the bowl," said Mrs. Jones sharply. "I wish
+you would learn to set the table while you are about it. I'm sure I
+have spoken to you often enough."
+
+As the girl took the sugar-bowl to fill it, the frown left the face
+of our hostess, and she turned to me with a bland smile, and asked
+whether I used sugar and cream in my tea. I replied in the
+affirmative; but did not smile in return, for I could not. I knew
+the poor girl's feelings were hurt at being spoken to in such a way
+before strangers, and this made me extremely uncomfortable.
+
+"Do you call this cream?" was the angry interrogation of Mrs. Jones,
+as the girl returned with the sugar, pushing towards her the
+cream-jug, which she had lifted from the table as she spoke.
+
+"Yes, ma'am," was replied.
+
+"Look at it, and see, then."
+
+"It's the cream," said the girl.
+
+"If that's cream, I never want to see milk. Here! take it away and
+bring me the cream."
+
+The girl looked confused and distressed. But she took the cream-jug
+and went down-stairs with it.
+
+"That's just the way they always do!" said Mrs. Jones; leaning back
+in her chair. "I really get out of all patience, sometimes."
+
+In a little while the girl returned.
+
+"It's the cream, ma'am, as I said. Here's the milk." And she
+presented two vessels.
+
+Mrs. Jones took both from her hands with an ill-natured jerk. Sure
+enough, it was as the girl had said.
+
+"Such cream!" fell from the lips of our hostess, as she commenced
+pouring it into the cups already filled with tea.
+
+The girl went down-stairs to take back the milk she had brought up,
+but she was scarcely at the bottom of the stairs, when the bell was
+rung for her.
+
+"Why don't you stay here? What are you running off about?" said Mrs.
+Jones, as she came in hurriedly. "You know I want you to wait on the
+table."
+
+And so it was during the whole meal. The girl was not once spoken to
+except in a tone of anger or offensive authority.
+
+I was no longer surprised that Mrs. Jones found it difficult to keep
+good domestics, for no one of feeling can long remain with a woman
+who speaks to them always in a tone of command, or who reproves them
+in the presence of visitors.
+
+My husband was very severe upon Mrs. Jones after we returned home.
+"No lady," said he, "ever spoke in anger or reproof to a domestic
+before a visitor or stranger. Nothing more surely evinces a vulgar
+and unfeeling mind."
+
+I did not attempt to gainsay his remark, for he expressed but my own
+sentiment. So far from uttering a reproof in the presence of a
+visitor, I am careful not to speak to my domestics about any fault
+even in the presence of my husband. They have a certain respect for
+themselves, and a certain delicacy of feeling, which we should
+rather encourage than break down. Nearly all domestics are careful
+to appear as well as possible in the eyes of the head of the family,
+and it hurts them exceedingly to be reproved, or angrily spoken to,
+before him. This every woman ought to know by instinct, and those
+who do not are just so far deficient in the aggregate of qualities
+that go to make up the true lady.
+
+I was by no means surprised to hear from Mrs. Jones, a few days
+afterwards, that the "good-for-nothing creature" who waited upon the
+table on the occasion of our taking tea at her house, had gone away
+and left her. I thought better of the girl for having the spirit to
+resent, in this way, the outrage committed upon her feelings.
+Domestics have rights and feelings; and if people were to regard
+these more, and treat them with greater kindness and consideration
+than they do, there would be fewer complaints than there are at
+present. This is my opinion, and I must be pardoned for expressing
+it.
+
+
+
+
+HAVEN'T THE CHANGE.
+
+
+IT was house-cleaning time, and I had an old coloured woman at work
+scrubbing and cleaning paint.
+
+"Polly is going, ma'am," said one of my domestics, as the twilight
+began to fall.
+
+"Very well. Tell her that I shall want her tomorrow."
+
+"I think she would like to have her money for to-day's work," said
+the girl.
+
+I took out my purse, and found that I had nothing in it less than a
+three-dollar bill.
+
+"How much does she have a day?"
+
+"Six shillings, ma'am."
+
+"I haven't the change this evening. Tell her that I'll pay for both
+days to-morrow."
+
+The girl left the room, and I thought no more of Polly for an hour.
+Tea-time had come and passed, when one of my domestics, who was
+rather communicative in her habits, said to me:
+
+"I don't think old Polly liked your not paying her this evening."
+
+"She must be very unreasonable, then," said I, without reflection.
+"I sent her word that I had no change. How did she expect I could
+pay her?"
+
+"Some people are queer, you know, Mrs. Graham," remarked the girl
+who had made the communication, more for the pleasure of telling it
+than any thing else.
+
+I kept thinking over what the girl had said, until other suggestions
+came into my mind.
+
+"I wish I had sent and got a bill changed," said I, as the idea that
+Polly might be really in want of money intruded itself. "It would
+have been very little trouble."
+
+This was the beginning of a new train of reflections, which did not
+make me very happy. To avoid a little trouble, I had sent the poor
+old woman away, after a hard day's work, without her money. That she
+stood in need of it was evident from the fact that she had asked for
+it.
+
+"How very thoughtless in me," said I, as I dwelt longer and longer
+on the subject.
+
+"What's the matter?" inquired my husband, seeing me look serious.
+
+"Nothing to be very much troubled at," I replied.
+
+"Yet you are troubled."
+
+"I am; and cannot help it. You will, perhaps, smile at me, but small
+causes sometimes produce much pain. Old Polly has been at work all
+day, scrubbing and cleaning. When night came, she asked for her
+wages, and I, instead of taking the trouble to get the money for
+her, sent her word that I hadn't the change. There was nothing less
+than a three-dollar bill in my purse. I didn't reflect that a poor
+old woman who has to go out to daily work must need her money as
+soon as it is earned. I am very sorry."
+
+My husband did not reply for some time. My words appeared to have
+made considerable impression on his mind.
+
+"Do you know where Polly lives?" he inquired at length.
+
+"No; but I will ask the girl." And immediately ringing the bell, I
+made inquiries as to where Polly lived; but no one in the house
+knew.
+
+"It cannot be helped now," said my husband, in a tone of regret.
+"But I would be more thoughtful in future. The poor always have need
+of their money. Their daily labour rarely does more than supply
+their daily wants. I can never forget a circumstance that occurred
+when I was a boy. My mother was left a widow when I was but nine
+years old--and she was poor. It was by the labour of her hands that
+she obtained shelter and food for herself and three little ones.
+
+"Once, I remember the occurrence as if it had taken place yesterday,
+we were out of money and food. At breakfast-time our last morsel was
+eaten, and we went through the long day without a mouthful of bread.
+We all grew very hungry by night; but our mother encouraged us to be
+patient a little and a little while longer, until she finished the
+garment she was making, when she would take that and some other work
+home to a lady who would pay her for the work. Then, she said, we
+should have a nice supper. At last the work was finished, and I went
+with my mother to help carry it home, for she was weak and sickly,
+and even a light burden fatigued her. The lady for whom she had made
+the garment was in good circumstances, and had no want unmet that
+money could supply. When we came into her presence, she took the
+work, and, after glancing at it carelessly, said,
+
+"'It will do very well.'
+
+"My mother lingered; perceiving which, the lady said, rather rudely,
+
+"'You want your money, I suppose. How much does the work come to?'
+
+"'Two dollars,' replied my mother. The lady took out her purse; and,
+after looking through a small parcel of bills, said,
+
+"'I haven't the change this evening. Call over anytime, and you
+shall have it.'
+
+"And without giving my mother time more earnestly to urge her
+request, turned from us and left the room. I never shall forget the
+night that followed. My mother's feelings were sensitive and
+independent. She could not make known her want. An hour after our
+return home, she sat weeping with her children around her, when a
+neighbour came in, and, learning our situation, supplied the present
+need."
+
+This relation did not make me feel any the more comfortable.
+Anxiously I waited, on the next morning, the arrival of Polly. As
+soon as she came I sent for her, and, handing her the money she had
+earned on the day before, said,
+
+"I'm sorry I hadn't the change for you last night, Polly. I hope you
+didn't want it very badly."
+
+Polly hesitated a little, and then replied,
+
+"Well, ma'am, I did want it very much, or I wouldn't have asked for
+it. My poor daughter Hetty is sick, and I wanted to get her
+something nice to eat."
+
+"I'm very sorry," said I, with sincere regret. "How is Hetty this
+morning?"
+
+"She isn't so well, ma'am. And I feel very bad about her."
+
+"Come up to me in half an hour, Polly," said I.
+
+The old woman went down-stairs. When she appeared again, according
+to my desire, I had a basket for her, in which were some wine,
+sugar, fruit, and various little matters that I thought her daughter
+would relish, and told her to go at once and take them to the sick
+girl. Her expressions of gratitude touched my feelings deeply. Never
+since have I omitted, under any pretence, to pay the poor their
+wages as soon as earned.
+
+
+
+
+OLD MAIDS' CHILDREN.
+
+
+"IF that were my child, I'd soon break him of such airs and capers.
+Only manage him right, and he'll be as good a boy as can be found
+anywhere."
+
+"Very few people appear to have any right government over their
+children."
+
+"Very few. Here is my sister; a sensible woman enough, and one would
+think the very person to raise, in order and obedience, a family of
+eight children. But she doesn't manage them rightly; and, what is
+remarkable, is exceedingly sensitive, and won't take kindly the
+slightest hint from me on the subject. If I say to her, 'If that
+were my child, Sarah, I would do so and so,' she will be almost sure
+to retort something about old maids' children."
+
+"Yes, that's the way. No matter how defective the family government
+of any one may be, she will not allow others to suggest
+improvements."
+
+"It would not be so with me. If I had a family of children, I should
+not only see their faults, but gladly receive hints from all sides
+as to their correction."
+
+"It's the easiest thing in the world to govern children, if you go
+the right way about it."
+
+"I know. There is nothing easier. And yet my sister will say,
+sometimes, that she is perfectly at a loss what to do. But no
+wonder. Like hundreds of others, she has let her children get
+completely ahead of her. If they don't break her heart in the end, I
+shall be glad."
+
+The immediate cause of this conversation between Miss Martha Spencer
+and a maiden lady who had been twenty-five for some ten or fifteen
+years--Miss Spencer could not be accused of extensive
+juvenility--was the refractory conduct of Mrs. Fleetwood's oldest
+child, a boy between six and seven years of age, by which a pleasant
+conversation had been interrupted, and the mother obliged to leave
+the room for a short period.
+
+"I think, with you," said Miss Jones, the visitor, "that Mrs.
+Fleetwood errs very greatly in the management of her children."
+
+"Management! She has no management at all," interrupted Miss
+Spencer.
+
+"In not managing her children, then, if you will."
+
+"So I have told her, over and over again, but to no good purpose.
+She never receives it kindly. Why, if I had a child, I would never
+suffer it to cry after it was six months old. It is the easiest
+thing in the world to prevent it. And yet, one of Sarah's children
+does little else but fret and cry all the time. She insists upon it
+that it can't feel well. And suppose this to be the case?--crying
+does it no good, but, in reality, a great deal of harm. If it is
+sick, it has made itself so by crying."
+
+"Very likely. I've known many such instances," remarked Miss Jones.
+
+Mrs. Fleetwood, returning at the moment, checked this train of
+conversation. She did not allude to the circumstance that caused her
+to leave the room, but endeavoured to withdraw attention from it by
+some pleasant remarks calculated to interest the visitor and give
+the thoughts of all a new direction.
+
+"I hope you punished Earnest, as he deserved to be," said her
+sister, as soon as Miss Jones had retired. "I never saw such a
+child!"
+
+"He certainly behaved badly," returned Mrs. Fleetwood, speaking in
+an absent manner.
+
+"He behaved outrageously! If I had a child, and he were to act as
+Earnest did this morning, I'd teach him a lesson that he would not
+forget in a year."
+
+"No doubt your children will be under very good government, Martha,"
+said Mrs. Fleetwood, a little sarcastically.
+
+"If they are not under better government than yours, I'll send them
+all to the House of Refuge," retorted Miss Martha.
+
+The colour on Mrs. Fleetwood's cheeks grew warmer at this remark,
+but she thought it best not to reply in a manner likely to provoke a
+further insulting retort, and merely said--
+
+"If ever you come to have children of your own, sister, you will be
+able to understand, better than you now do, a mother's trials,
+doubts, and difficulties. At present, you think you know a great
+deal about managing children, but you know nothing."
+
+"I know," replied Martha, "that I could manage my own children a
+great deal better than you manage yours."
+
+"If such should prove to be the case, no one will be more rejoiced
+at the result than I. But I look, rather, to see your children, if
+you should ever become a mother, worse governed than most people's."
+
+"You do?"
+
+"Yes, I do."
+
+"And why, pray?"
+
+"Because my own observation tells me, that those persons who are
+most inclined to see defects in family government, and to find fault
+with other people's management of their children, are apt to have
+the most unruly young scape-graces in their houses to be found
+anywhere."
+
+"That's all nonsense. The fact that a person observes and reflects
+ought to make that person better qualified to act."
+
+"Right observation and reflection, no doubt, will. But right
+observation and reflection in regard to children will make any one
+modest and fearful on the subject of their right government, rather
+than bold and boastful. Those who, like you, think themselves so
+well qualified to manage children, usually make the worst managers."
+
+"It's all very well for you to talk in that way," said Martha,
+tossing her head. "But, if I ever have children of my own, I'll show
+you whether I have the worst young scape-graces to be found
+anywhere."
+
+A low, fretful cry, or rather whine, had been heard from a child
+near the door of the room, for some time. It was one of those
+annoying, irritating cries, that proceed more from a fretful state
+of mind than from any adequate external exciting cause. Martha
+paused a moment, and then added--
+
+"Do you think I would suffer a child to cry about the house half of
+its time, as Ellen does? No, indeed. I'd soon settle that."
+
+"How would you do it?"
+
+"I'd make her stop crying."
+
+"Suppose you couldn't?"
+
+"Couldn't! That's not the way for a mother to talk."
+
+"Excuse me, Martha," said Mrs. Fleetwood, rising. "I would rather
+not hear such remarks from you, and now repeat what I have before
+said, more than once, that I wish you to leave me free to do what I
+think right in my own family; as I undoubtedly will leave you
+free, if ever you should have one."
+
+And Mrs. Fleetwood left the room, and taking the little girl who was
+crying at the door by the hand, led her up stairs.
+
+"What is the matter, Ellen?" she asked as calmly and as soothingly
+as the irritating nature of Ellen's peculiar cry or whine would
+permit her.
+
+"Earnest won't play with me," replied the child, still crying.
+
+"Come up into my room, and see if there isn't something pretty there
+to play with."
+
+"No--I don't want to," was the crying answer.
+
+"Yes; come." And Mrs. Fleetwood led along the resisting child.
+
+"No--no--no--I don't want to go. I want Earnest to play with me."
+
+"Humph! I'd stop that pretty quick!" remarked Miss Spencer to
+herself, as the petulant cry of the child grew louder. "I'd never
+allow a child of mine to go on like that."
+
+Mrs. Fleetwood felt disturbed. But experience had taught her that
+whenever she spoke from an irritated state, her words rather
+increased than allayed the evil she sought to correct. So she drew
+the child along with her, using some force in order to do it, until
+she reached her chamber. Her strongest impulse, on being alone with
+Ellen, who still continued crying, was to silence her instantly by
+the most summary process to which parental authority usually has
+resort in such cases; but her mother's heart suggested the better
+plan of diverting Ellen's mind, if possible, and thus getting it
+into a happier state. In order to do this, she tried various means,
+but without effect. The child still cried on, and in a manner so
+disturbing to the mother, that she found it almost impossible to
+keep from enforcing silence by a stern threat of instant punishment.
+But, she kept on, patiently doing what she thought to be right, and
+was finally successful in soothing the unhappy child. To her
+husband, with whom she was conversing on that evening about the
+state into which Ellen had fallen, she said--
+
+"I find it very hard to get along with her. She tires my patience
+almost beyond endurance. Sometimes it is impossible to bear with her
+crying, and I silence it by punishment. But I observe that if I can
+produce a cheerful state by amusing her and getting her interested
+in some play or employment, she retains her even temper much longer
+than when she has been stopped from crying by threats or punishment.
+If I only had patience with her, I could get along better. But it is
+so hard to have patience with a fretful, ever crying child."
+
+Of the mental exercises through which Mrs. Fleetwood passed, Miss
+Martha Spencer knew nothing. She saw only the real and supposed
+errors of her mode of government, and strongly condemned them. Her
+doctrine was, in governing children, "implicit obedience must be had
+at all hazards." At all hazards, as she generally expressed or
+thought it was only meant for extreme or extraordinary cases.
+Obedience she believed to be a thing easily obtained by any one who
+chose to enforce it. No where, it must be owned, did she see
+children as orderly and obedient as she thought they should be. But
+that she did not hesitate to set down to the fault of the parents.
+Her influence in the family of her sister was not good. To some
+extent she destroyed the freedom of Mrs. Fleetwood, and to some
+extent disturbed the government of her children by interfering with
+it, and attempting to make the little ones do as she thought best.
+Her interference was borne about as well as it could be by her
+sister, who now and then gave her a "piece of her mind," and in
+plain, straight forward terms. Mrs. Fleetwood's usual remark, when
+Martha talked about what she would do, if she had children, was a
+good humoured one, and generally something after this fashion--
+
+"Old maids' children are the best in the world, I know. They never
+cry, are never disobedient, and never act disorderly."
+
+Martha hardly relished this mode of "stopping her off," but it was
+generally effective, though sometimes it produced a slight
+ebullition.
+
+At last, though the chances in favour of matrimony had become
+alarmingly few, Martha was wooed, won, and married to a gentleman
+named Laurie, who removed with her to the West.
+
+"There is some prospect at last," Mrs. Fleetwood said to her
+husband, with a smile, on the occasion of Martha's wedding, "of
+sister's being able to bring into practice her theories in regard to
+family government. I only hope the mother's children may be as good
+as the old maid's."
+
+"I doubt if they will," remarked the husband, smiling in turn.
+
+"We shall see."
+
+Years passed, and Martha, now Mrs. Laurie, remained in the West. Her
+sister frequently heard from her by letter, and every now and then
+received the announcement of a fine babe born to the proud mother;
+who as often spoke of her resolution to do her duty towards her
+children, and especially in the matter of enforcing obedience. She
+still talked eloquently of the right modes of domestic government,
+and the high and holy duties of parents.
+
+"Let me be blamable in what I may," said she, in one of these
+letters, "it shall not be a disregard to the best interests of my
+children."
+
+"I hope not, indeed," said Mrs. Fleetwood, after reading the passage
+to her husband. "But those who really understand the true character
+of children, and are sensible of the fact that they inherit from
+their parents all the evil and disorderly tendencies not fully
+overcome in themselves, feel too deeply the almost hopeless task
+they assume, to boast much of what they will do with _their_
+children. A humble, reserved, even trembling consciousness of the
+difficulties in the way of the parent, is the most promising state
+in which a parent can assume his or her responsibilities. To look
+for perfect order and obedience is to look for what never comes. Our
+duty is to sow good seed in the minds of our children, and to see
+that the ground be kept as free from evil weeds as possible. The
+time of fruit is not until reason is developed; and we err in
+expecting fruit at an early period. There will come the tender
+blade, green and pleasant to the eye, and the firm, upright stalk,
+with its leaves and its branches; and flowers, too, after a while,
+beautiful, sweet-smelling flowers; but the fruit of all our labour,
+of all our careful culture, appears not until reason takes the place
+of mere obedience, and the child becomes the man. This view saves me
+from many discouragements; and leads me, in calm and patient hope,
+to persevere, even though through months, and, I might almost say,
+years, little prospect of ultimate fruit becomes apparent. But, good
+seed must bring forth good fruit."
+
+After a while, Mrs. Laurie ceased to write in her old strain. She
+sometimes spoke of her two eldest sons as fine boys, and of her two
+little girls as dear, sweet creatures; but generally omitted saying
+any thing more about her family than that all were in good health.
+
+Ten years after Martha's marriage and removal to the West, during
+which time the sisters had not met, business required Mr. Fleetwood
+to go to Cincinnati, and he proposed that his wife should accompany
+him, and pay a visit to Mrs. Laurie, who lived in Springfield, Ohio.
+Mrs. Fleetwood readily consented, and they started in the pleasant
+month of October.
+
+On arriving at Springfield, they were met by Mr. Laurie at the
+stage-office and taken to his house, where the sisters met,
+overjoyed at seeing each other once more.
+
+"Is that one of your children?" asked Mrs. Fleetwood, after she had
+laid aside her bonnet and riding-dress, and seated herself in her
+sister's chamber. A red-faced boy, with pouting lips, and a brow
+naturally or artificially so heavy as almost to conceal his organs
+of vision, stood holding on to one side of the door, and swinging
+himself in and out, all the while eyeing fixedly his aunt, of whose
+intended visit he had been advised.
+
+"Yes, that is my oldest. Henry, come here and speak to your aunty."
+
+But Henry did not change either attitude, motion, nor expression,
+any more than if he had been a swinging automaton.
+
+"Did you hear me?" Mrs. Laurie spoke with a slight change in her
+voice and manner.
+
+The boy remained as impassive as before.
+
+"Come, dear, and shake hands with me," said Mrs. Fleetwood.
+
+Henry now put one of his thumbs into his mouth, but neither looked
+nor acted less savagely than at first.
+
+Mrs. Laurie was fretted at this unfavourable exhibition of himself
+by her son. She felt as if she would like to get hold of him and box
+his ears until they burned for a week.
+
+"Henry! Come here!" She spoke in a tone of command. The door was
+quite as much impressed as her son.
+
+"Either come and speak to your aunty, or go down-stairs
+immediately."
+
+The boy moved not.
+
+This was too much for Mrs. Laurie, and she started towards him.
+Henry let go of the door, and went down-stairs about as quietly as a
+horse would have gone.
+
+"He's such a strange, shy boy," said Mrs. Laurie, apologetically.
+"But he has a good heart, and you can do almost any thing with him.
+How is Earnest? the dear little fellow."
+
+"Earnest is almost a man. He is as large as I am," replied Mrs.
+Fleetwood.
+
+"Indeed! I can't think of him as any thing but a bright little boy,
+not so large as my Henry."
+
+As she said this, her Henry, who had gone clattering down-stairs a
+few moments before, presented himself at the door again, and
+commenced swinging himself, and taking observations of the state of
+affairs within the chamber. The mother and aunt both concluded
+within their own minds that it was as well not to take any notice of
+him, and therefore went on with their conversation. Presently a
+happy, singing voice was heard upon the stairs.
+
+"There comes my little Martha, the light of the whole house," said
+Mrs. Laurie. In a few moments, a sweet-faced child presented
+herself, and was about entering, when Henry stepped into the door,
+and, putting a foot against each side, blocked up the way. Martha
+attempted to pass the rude boy, and, in doing so, fell over one of
+his feet, and struck her face a severe blow upon the floor. The loud
+scream of the hurt child, the clattering of Henry down-stairs, and
+the excited exclamation of the mother as she sprang forward, were
+simultaneous. Mr. Laurie and Mr. Fleetwood came running up from the
+room below, and arrived in time to see a gush of blood from the nose
+of Martha, as her mother raised her from the floor.
+
+"Isn't it too much!" exclaimed Mrs. Laurie. "I think that it is the
+worst boy I ever saw in my life!"
+
+The application of a little cold water soon staunched the flow of
+blood, and a few kind words soothed the feelings of the child, who
+sat in her mother's lap, and answered her aunt when she spoke to
+her, like a little lady, as she was.
+
+"Where are the rest of your children?" asked Mrs. Fleetwood. The
+gentlemen were now seated with the ladies.
+
+"You've had a pretty fair sample of them," replied Mr. Laurie,
+smiling good humouredly, "and may as well be content with that for
+the present. To say the best of them, they are about as wild a set
+of young scape-graces as ever made each other miserable, and their
+parents, too, sometimes."
+
+"Why, Mr. Laurie!" exclaimed his wife, who had not forgotten her old
+opinions, freely expressed, about the ease with which children could
+be governed. "I'm sure you needn't say that. I think our children
+quite as good as other people's, and a little better than some I
+could name."
+
+"Well, perhaps they are, and nothing to brag of at that," replied
+Mr. Laurie. "Children are children, and you can't make any thing
+more out of them."
+
+"But children should be made orderly and obedient," said Mrs.
+Laurie, with some dignity of expression.
+
+"If they can," pleasantly returned the father. "So far, we, at
+least, have not succeeded to our wishes in this respect. As to order
+and obedience, they seem to be cardinal sins rather than cardinal
+virtues, at present. But I hope better things after a while."
+
+As this was said, some one was heard tumbling rather than walking
+up-stairs, and, in a moment after, in bolted a boy about seven years
+old, crying out--
+
+"Hen' says Uncle and Aunt Fleetwood have come! Have they, mom?"
+
+The boy stopped short on perceiving that strangers were present.
+
+"Yes, my son, your Uncle and Aunt Fleetwood are here," said Mr.
+Fleetwood, reaching out his hand to the little fellow. Remembering
+Martha's former rigid notions about the government of children, he
+felt so much amused by what he saw, that he could hardly help
+laughing out immoderately. "Come here," he added, "and let me talk
+to you."
+
+The boy went without hesitation to his uncle, who took him by the
+hand and said, with a half wicked glance at the mother, yet with a
+broad good humoured smile upon his face,
+
+"That must be a very knowing hen of yours. I should like to have
+some of her chickens."
+
+"What hen?" asked the boy, with a serious air.
+
+"Why, the hen that told you we were here."
+
+"No hen told me that." The boy looked mystified.
+
+"Oh! I thought you said Hen' told you so."
+
+"No, it was Henry."
+
+"Say, no _sir_, my son." Mrs. Laurie's face was not pale, certainly,
+as she said this.
+
+The boy did not think it worth while to repeat the formality.
+
+"Oh! it was your brother Henry," replied Mr. Fleetwood, with
+affected seriousness. "I thought that must have been a very knowing
+hen." The boy, and his sister who had recovered from the pain of her
+fall, laughed heartily. "Now tell me your name?"
+
+"John."
+
+"Say John, _sir_. Where are your manners?" spoke up the mother, who
+remembered that, with all her sister's imperfect management of her
+children, she had succeeded in teaching them to be very respectful
+in their replies to older persons, and that Earnest, when she last
+saw him, was a little gentleman in his manners when amy one spoke to
+him.
+
+"Mo-_ther_!" came now ringing up the stairs, in a loud, screeching
+little voice. "Mo-_ther_! Hen' won't let me come up."
+
+"I declare! That boy is too bad! He's a perfect torment!" said Mrs.
+Laurie, fretfully. "I'm out of all heart with him."
+
+The father stepped to the head of the stairs, and spoke rather
+sternly to the rebellious Henry. Little feet, were soon heard
+pattering up, and the youngest of the young hopefuls made her
+appearance, and, soon after, Henry pushed his really repulsive face
+into the door and commenced grimacing at the other children, thereby
+succeeding in what he desired to do, viz., starting little Maggy,
+the youngest, into a whining, fretful cry, because "Hen' was making
+faces" at her. This cry, once commenced, was never known to end
+without the application of something more decided in its effects
+than words. It was in vain that the mother used every persuasive,
+diverting and soothing means in her power: the crying, loud enough
+to drown all conversation, continued, until, taking the child up
+hurriedly in her arms, she bore her into another room, where she
+applied some pretty severe silencing measures, which had, however,
+the contrary effect to that desired. The child cried on, but louder
+than before. For nearly ten minutes, she sought by scolding and
+whipping to silence her, but all was in vain. It is doubtful, after
+the means used to enforce silence, whether the child could have
+stopped if she had tried. At last, the mother locked her in a
+closet, and came, with a flushed face and mortified feelings, back
+to the room from which she had retired with Maggy.
+
+The moment Mrs. Laurie left, her husband, with a word and a look,
+brought the three children into order and quietness. Henry was told,
+in a low voice, and in a tone of authority, that he never thought of
+questioning, to go up into the garret and remain there until he sent
+for him. The boy retired without the slightest hesitation.
+
+When Mrs. Laurie returned, Mr. Fleetwood, who was a man of frank,
+free, and pleasant manners, could not resist the temptation he felt
+to remind her of the past; he, therefore, said, laughingly,
+
+"You have doubtless found out, by this time, Martha, that old maids'
+children are the best."
+
+This sally had just the effect he designed it to have. It was an
+apology for the children, as it classed them with other real
+children, in contradistinction to the imaginary offspring of the
+unmarried, that are known by every one to be faultless specimens of
+juvenility.
+
+"Come! That is too bad, Mr. Fleetwood," replied Mrs. Laurie, feeling
+an immediate sense of relief. "But, I own to the error I committed
+before marriage. It seemed to me the easiest thing in the world to
+manage children, when I thought about it, and saw where parents
+erred, or appeared to err, in their modes of government. I did not
+then know what was _in_ children. All their perverseness I laid to
+the account of bad management. Alas! I have had some sad experiences
+in regard to my error. Still, I cannot but own that children are
+made worse by injudicious treatment, and also, that mine ought to be
+a great deal better than they are."
+
+"Like the rest of us," returned Mr. Fleetwood, "you have no doubt
+discovered, that it is one thing to _think_ about the government of
+children, and another thing to be in the midst of their disturbing
+sphere, and yet act as if you did not feel it. Theory and practice
+are two things. It seems, when we think coolly, that nothing can be
+easier than to cause the one exactly to correspond to the other. But
+whoever makes the trial, especially where the right government of
+children is concerned, will find it a most difficult matter. What
+makes the government of their children so hard a thing for parents,
+is the fact that the evils of the children have been inherited from
+them, and therefore the reaction of these evils upon themselves is
+the more disturbing. We haven't as much patience with the faults of
+our own children, often, as other people have. They fret and annoy
+us, and take away our ability to speak in a proper tone and act with
+becoming dignity toward them, and thus destroy their respect for
+us."
+
+"Nothing can be truer," said Mrs. Laurie. "I stand rebuked. I am
+self-condemned, every day, on this very account. I used to think
+that your government and that of Sarah's over your children very
+defective. But it was far better than the government that I have
+been able to exercise over mine. Ah me!"
+
+"Don't sigh over the matter so terribly, Martha," spoke up the
+husband. "We shall get them right in the end. Never give up the
+ship, is my motto in this and every thing else. But I wouldn't have
+our brother and sister here think for a moment that the scenes they
+have witnessed are enacted every day. Their visit is an occasion of
+some excitement to our young folks, and they had to show off a
+little. They will cool down again, and we shall get on pleasantly
+enough."
+
+"That is all very true," said Mrs. Laurie, more cheerfully. "I never
+saw them act quite so outrageously before, when any one came in.
+There is much good in them, and you will see it before you leave
+us."
+
+"No doubt in the world of that," replied Mr. Fleetwood; "there is
+good in all children, and it is our duty to exercise great
+forbearance towards their evils, and be careful lest, by what we do
+or say, we strengthen, rather than break them."
+
+And the good that was in Mrs. Laurie's children was clearly seen by
+Mr. and Mrs. Fleetwood during their stay; but, that good was, alas!
+not strengthened as it might have been, nor were the evils they
+inherited kept quiescent, as they would to a great extent have
+remained, had the mother been more patient and forbearing--had her
+practice been as good as her theory.
+
+It is easy for us to see how others ought to act toward their
+children, but very hard for us to act right toward our own.
+
+
+
+
+THE MOTHER AND BOY.
+
+
+"TOM, let that alone!" exclaimed a mother, petulantly, to a boy
+seven years old, who was playing with a tassel that hung from one of
+the window-blinds, to the imminent danger of its destruction.
+
+The boy did not seem to hear, but kept on fingering the tassel.
+
+"Let that be, I tell you! Must I speak a hundred times? Why don't
+you mind at once?"
+
+The child slowly relinquished his hold of the tassel, and commenced
+running his hand up and down the venitian blind.
+
+"There! there! Do for gracious sake let them blinds alone. Go 'way
+from the window this moment, and try and keep your hands off of
+things. I declare! you are the most trying child I ever saw."
+
+Tom left the window and threw himself at full length into the
+cradle, where he commenced rocking himself with a force and rapidity
+that made every thing crack again.
+
+"Get out of that cradle! What do you mean? The child really seems
+possessed!" And the mother caught him by the arm and jerked him from
+the cradle.
+
+Tom said nothing, but, with the most imperturbable air in the world,
+walked twice around the room, and then pushing a chair up before the
+dressing-bureau, took therefrom a bottle of hair lustral, and,
+pouring the palm of his little hand full of the liquid, commenced
+rubbing it upon his head. Twice had this operation been performed,
+and Tom was pulling open a drawer to get the hair-brush, when the
+odour of the oily compound reached the nostrils of the lad's mother,
+who was sitting with her back toward him. Turning quickly, she saw
+what was going on.
+
+"You!" fell angrily from her lips, as she dropped the baby in the
+cradle. "Isn't it too much!" she continued, as she swept across the
+room to where Tom was standing before the bureau-dressing-glass.
+
+"There, sir!" and the child's ear rang with the box he received.
+"There, sir!" and the box was repeated. "Haven't I told you a
+hundred times not to touch that hair-oil? Just see what a spot of
+grease you've made on the carpet! Look at your hands!"
+
+Tom looked at his hands, and, seeing them full of oil, clapped them
+quickly down upon his jacket, and tried to rub them clean.
+
+"There! stop! mercy! Now see your new jacket that you put on this
+morning. Grease from top to bottom! Isn't it too bad! I am in
+despair!" And the mother let her hands fall by her side, and her
+body drop into a chair.
+
+"It's no use to try," she continued; "I'll give up. Just see that
+jacket! it's totally ruined; and that carpet, too. Was there ever
+such a trying boy! Go down-stairs this instant, and tell Jane to
+come up here."
+
+Tom had reason to know that his mother was not in a mood to be
+trifled with, so he went off briskly and called Jane, who was
+directed to get some fuller's earth and put upon the carpet where
+oil had been spilled.
+
+Not at all liking the atmosphere of his mother's room, Tom, being
+once in the kitchen, felt no inclination to return. His first work
+there, after delivering his message to Jane, was to commence turning
+the coffee-mill.
+
+"Tommy," said the cook, mildly, yet firmly, "you know I've told you
+that it was wrong to touch the coffee-mill. See here, on the floor,
+where you have scattered the coffee about, and now I must get a
+broom and sweep it up. If you do so, I can't let you come down
+here."
+
+The boy stood and looked at the cook seriously, while she got the
+broom and swept up the dirt he had made.
+
+"It's all clean again now," said the cook, pleasantly. "And you
+won't do so any more, will you?"
+
+"No, I won't touch the coffee-mill." And, as Tom said this, he
+sidled up to the knife-box that stood upon the dresser, and made a
+dive into it with his hand.
+
+"Oh, no, no, no, Tommy! that won't do, either," said the cook. "The
+knives have all been cleaned, and they are to go on the table to eat
+with."
+
+"Then what can I play with, Margaret?" asked the child, as he left
+the dresser. "I want something to play with."
+
+The cook thought a moment, and then went to a closet and brought out
+a little basket filled with clothes-pins. As she held them in her
+hand, she said--"Tommy, if you will be careful not to break any of
+these, nor scatter them about, you may have them to play with. But
+remember, now, that as soon as you begin to throw them around the
+room, I will put them up again."
+
+"Oh, no, I won't throw them about," said the little fellow, with
+brightening eyes, as he reached out for the basket of pins.
+
+In a little while he had a circle formed on the table, which he
+called his fort; and inside of this he had men, cannon,
+sentry-boxes, and other things that were suggested to his fancy.
+
+"Where's Thomas?" asked his mother, about the time he had become
+fairly interested in his fort.
+
+"I left him down in the kitchen," replied Jane.
+
+"Go down and tell him to come up here instantly."
+
+Down went Jane.
+
+"Come along up-stairs to your mother," said she.
+
+"No, I won't," replied the boy.
+
+"Very well, mister! You can do as you like; but your mother sent for
+you."
+
+"Tell mother I am playing here so good. I'm not in any mischief. Am
+I, Margaret?"
+
+"No, Tommy; but your mother has sent for you, and you had better
+go."
+
+"I don't want to."
+
+"Just as you like," said Jane, indifferently, as she left the
+kitchen and went up-stairs.
+
+"Where's Thomas?" was the question with which she was met on
+returning to the chamber.
+
+"He won't come, ma'am."
+
+"Go and tell him that if he doesn't come up to me instantly, I will
+put on his night-clothes and shut him up in the closet."
+
+The threat of the closet was generally uttered ten times where it
+was executed once; it made but little impression upon the child, who
+was all absorbed in his fort.
+
+Jane returned. In a few moments afterward, the quick, angry voice of
+the mother was heard ringing down the stairway.
+
+"You, Tom! come up here this instant."
+
+"I'm not troubling any thing, mother."
+
+"Come up, I say!"
+
+"Margaret says I may play with the clothes-pins. I'm only building a
+fort with them."
+
+"Do you hear me?"
+
+"Mother!"
+
+"Tom! if you don't come to me this instant, I'll almost skin you.
+Margaret! take them clothes-pins away. Pretty playthings, indeed,
+for you to give a boy like him! No wonder I have to get a dozen new
+ones every two or three months."
+
+Margaret now spoke.
+
+"Tommy, you must go up to your mother."
+
+She now took the clothes-pins and commenced putting them into the
+basket where they belonged. Her words and action had a more instant
+effect than all the mother's storm of passion. The boy left the
+kitchen in tears, and went slowly up-stairs.
+
+"Why didn't you come when I called you? Say!"
+
+The mother seized her little boy by the arm the moment he came in
+reach of her, and dragged rather than led him up-stairs, uttering
+such exclamations as these by the way:
+
+"I never saw such a child! You might as well talk to the wind! I'm
+in despair! I'll give up! Humph! clothes-pins, indeed! Pretty
+playthings to give a child! Every thing goes to rack and ruin!
+There!"
+
+And, as the last word was uttered, Tommy was thrust into his
+mother's room with a force that nearly threw him prostrate.
+
+"Now take off them clothes, sir."
+
+"What for, mother? I haven't done any thing! I didn't hurt the
+clothes-pins; Margaret said I might play with them."
+
+"D'ye hear? take off them clothes, I say!"
+
+"I didn't do any thing, mother."
+
+"A word more, and I'll box your ears until they ring for a month.
+Take off them clothes, I say! I'll teach you to come when I send for
+you! I'll let you know whether I am to be minded or not!"
+
+Tommy slowly disrobed himself, while his mother, fretted to the
+point of resolution, eyed him with unrelenting aspect. The jacket
+and trousers were removed, and his night-clothes put on in their
+stead, Tommy all the while protesting tearfully that he had done
+nothing.
+
+"Will you hush?" was all the satisfaction he received for his
+protestations.
+
+"Now, Jane, take him up-stairs to bed; he's got to lie there all the
+afternoon."
+
+It was then four, and the sun did not set until near eight o'clock.
+Up-stairs the poor child had to go, and then his mother found some
+quiet. Her babe slept soundly in the cradle, undisturbed by Tommy's
+racket, and she enjoyed a new novel to the extent of almost entirely
+forgetting her lonely boy shut up in the chamber above.
+
+"Where's Tommy?" asked a friend, who dropped in about six o'clock.
+
+"In bed," said the mother, with a sigh.
+
+"What's the matter? Is he sick?"
+
+"Oh, no. I almost wish he were."
+
+"What a strange wish! Why do you wish so?"
+
+"Oh, because he is like a little angel when he is sick--as good as
+he can be. I had to send him to bed as a punishment for
+disobedience. He is a hard child to manage; I think I never saw one
+just like him; but, you know, obedience is every thing. It is our
+duty to require a strict regard to this in our children."
+
+"Certainly. If they do not obey their parents as children, they will
+not obey the laws as men."
+
+"That is precisely the view I take; and I make it a point to require
+implicit obedience in my boy. This is my duty as a parent; but I
+find it hard work."
+
+"It is hard, doubtless. Still we must persevere, and, in patience,
+possessing our souls."
+
+"To be patient with a boy like mine is a hard task. Sometimes I feel
+as if I should go wild." said the mother.
+
+"But, under the influence of such a feeling," remarked the friend,
+"what we say makes little or no impression. A calmly uttered word,
+in which there is an expression of interest in and sympathy for the
+child, does more than the sternest commands. This I have long since
+discovered. I never scold my children; scolding does no good, but
+harm. My oldest boy is restless, excitable, and impulsive. If I were
+not to provide him with the means of employing himself, or in other
+ways divert him, his hands would be on every thing in the house, and
+both he and I made unhappy."
+
+"But how can you interest him?"
+
+"In various ways. Sometimes I read to him; sometimes I set him to
+doing things by way of assisting me. I take him out when I can, and
+let him go with the girls when I send them on errands. I provide him
+with playthings that are suited to his age. In a word, I try to keep
+him in my mind; and, therefore, find it not very difficult to meet
+his varying states. I never thrust him aside, and say I am too busy
+to attend to him, when he comes with a request. If I cannot grant
+it, I try not to say 'no,' for that word comes too coldly upon the
+eager desire of an ardent-minded boy."
+
+"But how can you help saying 'no,' if the request is one you cannot
+grant?"
+
+"Sometimes I ask if something else will not do as well; and
+sometimes I endeavour to create a new interest in his mind. There
+are various ways in which it may be done, that readily suggest
+themselves to those desirous for the good of their children. It is
+affection that inspires thought. The love of children always brings
+a quick intelligence touching their good."
+
+Much more was said, not needful here to repeat. When the friend went
+away, Tommy's mother, whose heart convicted her of wrong to her
+little boy, went up to the room where she had sent him to spend four
+or five lonely hours as a punishment for what was, in reality, her
+own fault, and not his. Three hours of the weary time had already
+passed. She did not remember to have heard a sound from him, since
+she drove him away with angry words. In fact, she had been too
+deeply interested in the new book she was reading, to have heard any
+noise that was not of an extraordinary character.
+
+At the door of the chamber she stood and listened for a moment. All
+was silent within. The mother's heart beat with a heavy motion. On
+entering, she found the order of the room undisturbed; not even a
+chair was out of place. Tommy was asleep on the bed. As his mother
+bent over him, she saw that tears were upon his cheeks and eyelids,
+and that the pillow was wet. A choking sigh struggled up from her
+bosom; she felt a rebuking consciousness of having wronged her
+child. She laid her hand upon his red cheek, but drew it back
+instantly; it was hot with fever. She caught up his hand; it was
+also in a burning glow. Alarm took the place of grief for having
+wronged her boy. She tried to awaken him, but he only moaned and
+muttered. The excitement had brought on a fever.
+
+When the father came home and laid his hand upon the hot cheek of
+his sleeping boy, he uttered an exclamation of alarm, and started
+off instantly for a physician. All night the wretched mother watched
+by her sick child, unable, from fear and self-reproaches, to sleep.
+When the morning broke, and Thomas looked up into her face with a
+gleam of trusting affection, his fever was gone and his pulse was
+calm. The mother laid her cheek thankfully against that of her boy,
+and prayed to Heaven for strength to bear with him, and wisdom to
+guide her feet aright; and as she did so, in the silence of her
+overflowing heart, the lad drew his arms around her neck, and,
+kissing her, said--"Mother, I do love you!"
+
+That tears came gushing over the mother's face is no cause of
+wonder, nor that she returned, half wildly, the embrace and kiss of
+her child.
+
+Let us hope that, in her future conduct towards her ardent, restless
+boy, she may be able to control herself; for then she will not find
+it hard to bring him under subjection to what is right.
+
+
+
+
+THE CHRISTMAS PARTY.
+
+
+CHRISTMAS had come round again--merry old Christmas, with his
+smiling face and wealth of good cheer; and every preparation had
+been made by the Arlingtons for their annual Christmas party, which
+was always a gay time for the young friends of the family.
+
+Some hundreds of miles away, in a quiet New-England village, lived
+Mr. Archer, an uncle of Mr. Arlington. He was a good man; but being
+a minister of the old school, and well advanced in years, he was
+strongly prejudiced against all "fashionable follies," as he called
+nearly every form of social recreation. Life was, in his eyes, too
+solemn a thing to be wasted in any kind of trifling. In preaching
+and praying, in pious meditation, and in going about to do good,
+much of his time was passed; and another portion of it was spent in
+reflecting upon and mourning over the thoughtless follies of the
+world. He had no time for pleasure-taking; no heart to smile at the
+passing foibles or merry humours of his fellow-men.
+
+Such was the Rev. Mr. Jason Archer--a good man, but with his mind
+sadly warped through early prejudices, long confirmed. For years he
+had talked of a journey to the city where his niece, to whom he was
+much attached, resided. This purpose was finally carried out. It was
+the day before Christmas, when Mrs. Arlington received a letter from
+the old gentleman, announcing the fact that she might expect to see
+him in a few hours, as he was about starting to pay her and her
+family the long-intended visit.
+
+"Uncle Archer will be here to-morrow," said Mrs. Arlington to her
+husband, as soon as she met him after receiving her letter.
+
+"Indeed! And so the good old gentleman has made a move at last?"
+
+"Yes; he's going to eat his Christmas dinner with us, he says."
+
+"So much the better. The pleasure of meeting him will increase the
+joy of the occasion."
+
+"I am not so sure of that," replied Mrs. Arlington, looking a little
+serious. "It would have been more pleasant to have received this
+visit at almost any other time in the year."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"You know his strong prejudices?"
+
+"Oh, against dancing, and all that?"
+
+"Yes; he thinks it a sin to dance."
+
+"Though I do not."
+
+"No; but it will take away half my pleasure to see him grieved at
+any thing that takes place in my house."
+
+"He'll not be so weak as that."
+
+"He thinks it sin, and will be sadly pained at its occurrence. Is it
+not possible to omit dancing for once?"
+
+"At the party to-morrow night?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Mr. Arlington shook his head, as he replied--
+
+"Don't think of such a thing. We will receive him with true
+kindness, because we feel it towards the good old man. But we must
+not cease to do what we know to be right, thus disappointing and
+marring the pleasure of many, out of deference to a mere prejudice
+of education in a single person. When we go to see him, we do not
+expect that any change will be made out of deference to our
+prejudices or peculiar opinions; and when he comes to see us, he
+must be willing to tolerate what takes place in our family, even if
+it does not meet his full approval. No, no; let us not think for a
+moment of any change in affairs on this account. Uncle Archer hasn't
+been present at a gay party nor seen dancing for almost half a
+century. It may do him good to witness it now. At any rate, I feel
+curious to see the experiment tried."
+
+Mrs. Arlington still argued for a little yielding in favour of the
+good parson's prejudices, but her husband would not listen to such a
+thing for a moment. Every thing, he said, must go on as usual.
+
+"A guest who comes into a family," he remarked, "should always
+conform himself to the family order; then there is no reaction upon
+him, and all are comfortable and happy. He is not felt as a thing
+foreign and incongruous, but as homogeneous. To break up the usual
+order, and to bend all to meet his personal prejudices and
+peculiarities, is only to so disturb the family sphere as to make it
+actually repellent. He is then felt as an unassimilated foreign
+body, and all secretly desire his removal."
+
+"But something is due to old age!" urged Mrs. Arlington.
+
+"Yes; much. But, if age have not softened a man's prejudices against
+a good thing in itself, I doubt very much if a deference to his
+prejudice, such as you propose, will in the least benefit him.
+Better let him come in contact with a happy circle, exhilarated by
+music and dancing; and the chances are, that his heart will melt in
+the scene rather than grow colder and harder. The fact is, as I
+think of it more and more, the better pleased am I that Uncle Archer
+is coming just at this time."
+
+But Mrs. Arlington felt troubled about the matter. Early on
+Christmas morning, the old gentleman arrived, and was welcomed with
+sincere affection by every member of the family. Mr. and Mrs.
+Arlington had a daughter, named Grace, who was just entering her
+eighteenth year. She was gentle and affectionate in disposition, and
+drew to the side of Uncle Archer in a way that touched the old man's
+feelings. He had not seen her before this, since she was a little
+girl; and now, he could not keep his eyes off of her as she sat by
+him, or moved about the room in his presence.
+
+"What a dear girl that is!" was his remark to her mother, many times
+through the day.
+
+"She's a good girl," would simply reply Mrs. Arlington, speaking
+almost without thought. Grace was a good girl; her mother felt this,
+and from her heart her lips found utterance.
+
+It seemed, all through the day, that Grace could not do enough for
+the old man's comfort. Once she drew him into her room, as he was
+passing her door, to show him some pictures that she had painted. As
+he sat looking at them, he noticed a small, handsomely bound Bible
+on her table. Taking it up, he said--
+
+"Do you read this, Grace?"
+
+"Oh, yes," she replied, "every day." And there was such a light of
+goodness in her eyes, as she looked up into his face, that Mr.
+Archer felt, for a moment or two, as if the countenance of an angel
+was before him.
+
+"Why do you read it?" he continued after a pause.
+
+"It teaches us the way to heaven," said Grace.
+
+"And you are trying to live for heaven?"
+
+"I try to shun all evil as sin. Can I do more?"
+
+All the minister's creeds, and doctrines, and confessions of faith,
+which he had ever considered the foundations upon which Christian
+life was to be built, seemed, for a moment or two, useless lumber
+before the simple creed of this loving, pure-hearted maiden. To seek
+to disturb this state of innocence and obedience by moody polemics,
+he felt, instinctively, to be wrong.
+
+"Perhaps not," was his half abstracted reply; "perhaps not. Yes,
+yes; shun what is evil, and the Lord will adjoin the good."
+
+"Yes, yes; she _is_ a good girl, as her mother says," was frequently
+repeated by Uncle Archer during the day, when he would think of
+Grace.
+
+Evening came, and young and old began to gather in the parlours. The
+minister was introduced to one and another, as they arrived, and was
+much gratified with the respect and attention shown to him by all.
+Grace soon drew around him three or four of her young friends, who
+listened to what he had to say with an interest that gratified his
+feelings. Nothing had been said to Grace of her uncle's prejudice
+against dancing; she was, therefore, no little surprised to see the
+sudden change in his manner, when she said to a young lady in the
+group around him--
+
+"Come! you must play some cotillions for us. We're going to have a
+dance."
+
+After going with the young lady to the piano, and opening it for
+her, Grace went back to her uncle, whose face she found deeply
+clouded.
+
+"A'n't you well, uncle?" she asked, affectionately.
+
+"Oh yes, child, I am well enough in body," was replied.
+
+"But something troubles you, uncle--what is it?"
+
+By this time a number of couples were on the floor, and at the
+moment, a young man came up to Grace, and said--
+
+"Shall I have the pleasure of dancing with you this evening?"
+
+"Not in the first set," replied Grace; "but I will consider myself
+engaged for the second, unless you can find a more agreeable
+partner."
+
+"Do you dance, then?" asked Uncle Arthur, gravely, after the young
+man had turned away.
+
+"Dance?" Grace was in doubt whether she had clearly understood him.
+
+"Yes, dear."
+
+"Certainly I do, uncle. You don't think there is harm in dancing?"
+
+"I do, my child. And, I am sure that, after what you said about
+reading your Bible and trying to live for heaven, your admission
+greatly surprises me. Religion and dancing! How can they have an
+affinity?"
+
+"Good and evil can have no affinity," said Grace, in reply to this
+remark. "Evil, I have always understood to be in a purpose to do
+wrong. Now, I can dance with a good purpose; and, surely, then,
+dancing cannot be evil to me."
+
+"Dance with a good purpose! How can you do that, my dear?"
+
+"I have often danced with the sole end of contributing my share to
+the general enjoyment of a company."
+
+"Strange enjoyment!" sighed the old parson.
+
+"The timing of steps, and the orderly movement of the body in
+concert with musical harmonies, often affects the mind with
+exquisite delight, uncle. I have enjoyed this over and over again,
+and have felt better and happier afterwards."
+
+"Child! child!" replied the old man; "how it grieves me to hear you
+say this."
+
+"If there is sin in dancing, uncle," said Grace, seriously, "tell me
+wherein it lies. Look at the countenances of those now on the floor;
+do they express evil or good affection?--here, as I have been
+taught, lies the sin."
+
+"It is a foolish waste of time," returned the old man; "a foolish
+waste of time; and it is an evil thing to waste the precious time
+that God has given to us."
+
+"We cannot always work or read. Both mind and body become wearied."
+
+"Then we have time for meditation."
+
+"But even thought will grow burdensome at times, and the mind sink
+into listlessness and inactivity. Then we need recreation, in order
+that we may afterwards both work and think better. Music and
+dancing, in which mind and body find an innocent delight, effect
+such a recreation. I know it is so in my case; and I know it is so
+in the case of others. You do not say that dancing is a thing evil
+in itself?"
+
+"No." This was admitted rather reluctantly.
+
+"Then if it be made to serve a good end, it is a good thing."
+
+"But is often made to serve evil," said the minister.
+
+"Then it is an evil thing," promptly answered Grace; "and so every
+good gift of heaven may be made an evil thing to those who use it
+for an evil purpose. You know it is said that a spider extracts
+poison from the same flower where the bee gets honey. The deadly
+nightshade draws life from the same rain and sunshine that nourishes
+and matures the wheat, from which our bread is made. It is the
+purpose, uncle, that makes a thing evil."
+
+"Could you pray on going to bed, after an evening spent in dancing?"
+asked the old man, confident that he had put a question that would
+clearly show his niece her error. To his surprise, Grace answered,
+with a beautiful smile on her face--
+
+"Oh, yes; and I have so prayed, many and many a time; not failing to
+return thanks for the pleasure I had been permitted to enjoy."
+
+"Thanks for mere carnal pleasure!"
+
+"All things are good that are filled with good affections," said
+Grace. "We are in a natural world, where all pleasure and pain
+affect us in the natural degree most sensibly. We must come down,
+that we may go up. We must let our natural joy and gladness have
+free course, innocently, that they may be changed into a joy that is
+higher and spiritual. Is it not so, uncle?"
+
+Now, the old man had not expected to find such a nice head on so
+young a body; nor did he expect to be called upon to answer a
+question, which came in a form that he was not prepared either to
+negative or affirm. He had put all natural pleasures under the ban,
+as flowing from the carnal mind; and, therefore, evil. As to filling
+natural pleasures with spiritual life, that was a new position in
+theology. He had preached against natural pleasures as evil, and,
+therefore, to be abandoned by all who would lead a heavenly life.
+Before he could collect his thoughts for an answer satisfactory to
+himself, two or three ladies gathered around them, and he discreetly
+forebore to make any further remarks on the subject. But he felt, as
+may be supposed, very uncomfortable.
+
+After the first set was danced, one of the young ladies who had been
+on the floor, and who had previously been introduced to the old
+gentleman by Grace, came, with colour heightened by excitement, and
+her beautiful face in a glow of pleasure, and sat down by his side.
+Mr. Archer would have received her with becoming gravity, had it
+been in his power to, do so; but the smile on her face was so
+innocent, and she bent towards him so kindly and affectionately,
+that he could not find it in his heart to meet her with even a
+silent reproof. This young lady was really charming his ear, when a
+gentleman came up to her, and said--
+
+"Anna, I want you to dance with me."
+
+"With pleasure," replied the girl. "You will excuse me for a while,
+Mr. Archer," said she, and she was about rising as she spoke, but
+the old man placed his hand upon her arm, and gently detained her.
+
+"You're not going to leave me?"
+
+"No, not if my company will give you any pleasure," replied the
+young girl, with a gentle smile. "Please excuse me." This she
+addressed to the person who had asked her to dance. He bowed, and
+turned away.
+
+"I am glad to keep you by my side," said Mr. Archer, with some
+seriousness in his manner.
+
+"And I am glad to stay here," was promptly answered, "if my company
+will give you any pleasure. It does me good to contribute to others'
+happiness."
+
+The old man was touched by this reply, for he felt that it was from
+the heart. It sounded strangely to his ears from the lips of one who
+had just been whirling in the mazy dance.
+
+"There is no real pleasure in any thing selfish," he remarked. "Yes,
+you say truly, it does us good to contribute to the happiness of
+others."
+
+"For this reason," said Anna, "I like dancing as a social
+recreation. It is a mutual pleasure. We give and receive enjoyment."
+
+The old minister's face grew serious.
+
+"I have been to three or four parties," continued the young girl,
+"where dancing was excluded, under some strange idea that it was
+wrong; and I must say that so much evil-speaking and censoriousness
+it has never been my lot to encounter in any company. The time,
+instead of being improved as a season of mental and bodily
+recreation, was worse than wasted. I know that I was worse instead
+of better on returning from each of these companies, for I
+insensibly fell into the prevailing spirit."
+
+"That was very bad, certainly," remarked Mr. Archer, before whose
+mind arose some pictures of social gatherings, in which had
+prevailed the very spirit condemned by his young companion. "But I
+don't see how you are going to make dancing a sovereign remedy for
+the evil."
+
+"It is not a sovereign remedy," was answered, "but it is a concert
+of feeling and action, in which the mind is exhilarated, and in
+which a mutual good-will is produced. You cannot dance without being
+pleased, to a greater or less extent, with your partners on the
+floor. Often and often have I had a prejudice against persons wear
+off as we moved together in the dances, and I have afterwards
+discovered in them good qualities to which I was before blinded."
+
+"Uncle," said Grace to the old man, just at this moment, bending to
+his ear as she spoke, and taking his hand in hers,--"come! I want to
+show you something."
+
+Grace drew him into the adjoining parlour, where another set was on
+the floor. Two children, her younger brother and sister, were in it.
+
+"Now, just look at Ada and Willy," whispered Grace in his ear, as
+she brought him in view of the young dancers. Ada was a lovely
+child, and the old uncle's heart had already taken her in. She was a
+graceful little dancer, and moved in the figures with the lightness
+of a fairy. It was a beautiful sight, and in the face of all the
+prejudices which half a century had worn into him, he felt that it
+was beautiful. As he looked upon it, he could keep the dimness from
+his eyes only by a strong effort.
+
+"Is there evil in that, uncle?" asked Grace, drawing her arm within
+that of the old man's.
+
+"Is it good?" he replied.
+
+"Yes; it is good," said Grace, emphatically, as she lifted her eyes
+to his.
+
+Mr. Archer did not gainsay her words. He at least felt that it was
+not evil, though he could not admit that it was good.
+
+Spite of the dancing, which soon ceased to offend the good old man,
+he passed a pleasant evening. Perhaps, he enjoyed the Christmas
+party as much as any one there.
+
+Nothing was said, on the next day, by any one, on the subject of
+dancing; though Mr. Archer, especially, thought a great deal about
+the matter. Some ideas had come into his mind that were new there,
+and he was pondering them attentively. On the third day of his
+arrival, he had a severe attack of rheumatism, from which he
+suffered great pain, besides a confinement to his room for a couple
+of weeks. During that time, the untiring devotion and tender
+solicitude of Grace touched the old man's heart deeply. When the
+pain had sufficiently abated to let his mind attain composure, she
+sought to interest him in various ways. Sometimes she would read to
+him by the hour; sometimes she would entertain him with cheerful
+conversation; and sometimes she would bring in one or two of her
+young friends whom he had met at the Christmas party.
+
+With these, he had more than one discussion, in his sick room, on
+the subject of dancing, and the old minister found these gay young
+girls rather more than a match for him. During a discussion of this
+kind, Grace left the room. In her absence, one of her companions
+said to him--
+
+"Grace is a good girl."
+
+A quick light went over the old man's countenance; and he replied,
+with evident feeling--
+
+"Good? Yes; I look at her, sometimes, and think her almost an
+angel."
+
+"She dances."
+
+The old man sighed.
+
+"She is a Christian."
+
+"I wish there were more such in the world," said he, unhesitatingly.
+
+"And yet she dances."
+
+"My dear child," said Mr. Archer, turning with an affectionate smile
+towards his young interlocutor, "don't take such an advantage of me
+in the argument."
+
+"Then it is settled," was continued, in triumph, "that if dancing is
+not a Christian grace, a maiden may dance and yet be a Christian?"
+
+"God bless you, and keep you from all the evil of the world," said
+the old man, fervently, as he took the young girl's hand and pressed
+it between his own. "It may be all right! it may be all right!"
+
+Grace came back at the moment, and he ceased speaking.
+
+From that time the venerable minister said no more on the subject,
+and it is but fair to believe that when he returned home he had very
+serious doubts in regard to the sin of dancing, which had once been
+as fairly held as if it had been an article in the Confession of
+Faith.
+
+
+
+
+IS SHE A LADY?
+
+
+"MRS. TUDOR is a perfect lady," said my wife, Mrs. Sunderland, to me
+one day, after having received a visit from the individual she
+named.
+
+"She may have the manners of a lady," I replied, "when abroad; but
+whether she be a lady at home or not, is more than I can tell. It is
+easy to put on the exterior of a lady; but to be a lady is a very
+different thing."
+
+"All that is true enough; but why do you connect such remarks with
+the name of Mrs. Tudor? Do you know any thing to the contrary of her
+being a lady?--a lady at home, as you say, for instance?"
+
+"No, I can't say that I do; but, somehow or other, I am a little
+inclined to be doubtful of the genuineness of Mrs. Tudor's claims to
+being a lady. Once or twice I have thought that I perceived an air
+of superciliousness to persons who were considered inferior. This is
+a rigid but true test of any one's claims to being either a lady or
+a gentleman. No true lady is less careful of the feelings of those
+below her than she is of those who are upon an equality."
+
+"But you only thought you saw this," said Mrs. Sunderland.
+
+"True, and my thought may be only a thought," I returned, "and
+unjust to Mrs. Tudor, who may be as much of a lady at home and under
+all circumstances, as she appears to be when abroad."
+
+"What she is, I have not the least doubt," said my wife.
+
+I never altogether fancied this Mrs. Tudor, although Mrs. Sunderland
+liked her very much. Before we built our new house, Mrs. Tudor did
+not know us, notwithstanding the fact that our pews had adjoined for
+two or three years. But after that event, Mrs. Tudor found out that
+we had an existence, and became uncommonly gracious with my wife.
+
+Not long after I had spoken out my mind in regard to Mrs. Tudor,
+that lady, in company with her husband, paid us a visit one evening,
+and after sitting an hour, invited us to come around and take tea
+with them on a certain evening in the ensuing week.
+
+When the time came, as we had accepted the invitation, we went. We
+found about a dozen persons assembled, half of whom were entire
+strangers to us. Among these I soon perceived that there were two or
+three who, in the eyes of Mrs. Tudor, were a little superior to her
+other guests. On our entrance, we were introduced to them first, and
+with particular formality, our lady hostess pronouncing their names
+in a very distinct manner, while her articulation of ours was so low
+that they were scarcely, if at all, heard. During the hour that
+passed before tea was announced, Mrs. Tudor confined her attentions
+almost exclusively to these two or three individuals, who were
+evidently persons of more consequence than the rest of us. So
+apparent was all this, that most of those who were in the room,
+instead of joining in the conversation, sat looking at the more
+favoured guests.
+
+"They must be persons of some importance," I could not help saying
+to my wife in an undertone, in which her quick ear detected
+something of sarcasm.
+
+"For mercy's sake, Mr. Sunderland!" she replied, in a voice that
+only reached my own ears, "don't make remarks upon any of the
+company."
+
+If she had said, "It is not gentlemanly to do so," she could not
+have conveyed what she wished to utter more distinctly than she did.
+
+I felt the force of her reproof, but could not resist the
+inclination I felt to reply.
+
+"We have so good an example of what is polite and genteel, that it
+is not to be wondered if we profit a little."
+
+"Mr. Sunderland! Why, will you!" My wife seemed distressed.
+
+I said no more on the subject, content with having let her know that
+I was noticing the conduct of her perfect lady. I believe, if I
+could have seen her thoughts, that among them I would have detected
+this one among the rest; that it was not exactly fair and
+gentlemanly in me to remind her so promptly of the error she had
+probably committed in her estimate of Mrs. Tudor's character.
+
+Fully absorbed as she was in showing attentions to her more favoured
+guests, Mrs. Tudor did not perceive the cold, uncomfortable,
+unsocial feeling that had crept over the rest of her company.
+
+Tea was at last announced. I felt relieved at this, and so, I
+perceived, did most of those around me. At the tea-table I expected
+to find Mrs. Tudor more general in her attentions. But no. These
+favoured ones were served first, and "Mrs.--, will you have this?"
+and "Mrs.--, will you have that?" were almost exclusively confined
+to three persons at the table. Mr. Tudor, I remarked, noticed this,
+for he exerted himself in order to make all the rest feel at ease,
+which he succeeded in doing to some extent.
+
+Waiting upon the table was a female domestic, a young girl of good
+manners and appearance. To her Mrs. Tudor uniformly spoke in a way
+that must have been felt as peculiarly disagreeable. The blandest
+smile; and the most winning expression of voice, would instantly
+change, when Lucy was addressed, to a cold, supercilious look, and
+an undertone of command. Several times I saw the blood mount to the
+girl's forehead, as a word or tone more marked and offensive than
+usual would be given so loudly as to be perceived by all. Once or
+twice, at such times, I could not resist a glance at Mrs.
+Sunderland, which was generally met with a slight, rebuking
+contraction of her brow.
+
+Through the efforts of Mr. Tudor, who certainly did his part well,
+the tea-table party was a good deal more social than had been the
+individuals composing it while in the parlour. The favoured guests,
+notwithstanding the incense offered them by our hostess, appeared in
+no way to esteem themselves as better than the rest, and, as soon as
+opportunity was afforded them, tried to be at home with every one.
+Once more in the parlours, and arranged there by a kind of social
+crystallization, I perceived that Mrs. Tudor was sitting between two
+of the ladies who were considered by her worthy of the most marked
+attention. There she sat during nearly the whole of the evening,
+except when refreshments were introduced, when she accompanied Lucy
+round the room, occasionally speaking to her in a tone of offensive
+command or cutting rebuke.
+
+For one, I was glad when the time came to go home, and I rather
+think that all present were as much relieved, in getting away, as I
+was.
+
+"What is your opinion now?" said I, triumphantly, to Mrs.
+Sunderland, the moment we were in the street.
+
+"My opinion," she replied, a little sharply, "is, that you did not
+act, in several instances, this evening, like a gentleman!"
+
+"I did not!" I spoke with affected surprise only; for I thought I
+knew what it was she meant.
+
+"No, I am sorry to say that you did not. Nothing could have been
+more improper than the notice you took of what was passing. A true
+gentlemanly spirit would have led you to look away from, rather than
+at the weakness of our hostess."
+
+"Look away from it, Mrs. Sunderland! How could I do that, pray? It
+was before my eyes all the time."
+
+"You ought to have shut your eyes, then."
+
+"Nonsense."
+
+"Very far from it, Mr. Sunderland! You are ready enough to see the
+faults of other people!"--(in this, I must confess, my wife did not
+err very much)--"but quite willing to shut your eyes to your own.
+Now, I think you acted just as bad as Mrs. Tudor; and, in fact,
+worse."
+
+"Worse! You are complimentary, Mrs. Sunderland."
+
+"I can't help it if I am. Mrs. Tudor was led by her weakness to
+conduct herself in an unlady-like manner; but you, with her example
+before your eyes, and in a mood to reflect, permitted yourself to
+remark upon her conduct in a way calculated to give pain."
+
+"In the name of wonder, what are you driving at, Mrs. Sunderland? No
+one but you heard any remark I made."
+
+"I wish I could think so."
+
+"Who, besides yourself, heard what I said?"
+
+"Mr. Tudor."
+
+"Impossible!"
+
+"He was sitting very near us when you so far forgot yourself as to
+notice, verbally, what was passing, and I am well satisfied, either
+heard distinctly what was said, or enough to enable him to
+understand the nature of all you said."
+
+"You are surely mistaken," said I, feeling a good deal mortified,
+and perceiving much more clearly than I did before the nature of my
+offence against good manners and propriety of conduct.
+
+"I wish I were. But I fear I am not. I know that Mr. Tudor looked
+around toward you suddenly, and I noticed that he was much more
+particular afterward in his attentions to the rest of the company.
+At table, you may have yourself remarked this."
+
+"Yes, I noticed it."
+
+"And yet, even at the table, when he was doing his best, you again
+hurt his feelings."
+
+"Me!"
+
+"Yes, you. When Mrs. Tudor spoke harshly to Lucy, or did something
+or other that you thought out of the way, you must look your sarcasm
+at me, notwithstanding the eyes of her husband were upon you."
+
+"But he didn't see me, then."
+
+"Yes, but he did. I saw him looking directly at you."
+
+"Oh, no! it cannot be." I was unwilling to believe this.
+
+"I wish it were not so for my husband's sake," returned Mrs.
+Sunderland. "But the evidence of my senses I generally find it
+necessary to credit."
+
+I must own that I felt considerably cut up, or cut down, whichever
+is the most mortifying state to be in. To look and whisper my
+censure in company, I had thought no great harm; but now that I had
+found I had been discovered in the act, I had a mortifying sense of
+its impropriety.
+
+"Well, anyhow," said I, rallying myself, and speaking with some
+lightness of tone, "it is clear that Mrs. Tudor is no lady, for all
+you thought her such a pattern-card of gentility."
+
+"And I have not the least doubt," retorted my wife, "that it is
+equally clear to Mr. Tudor that you are no gentleman. So, on that
+score, the account stands fairly balanced between the two families."
+
+This was a pretty hard hit; and I felt a little "riled up," as the
+Yankees say, but I concluded that the uttering of a few sharp
+sayings to my wife, under the circumstances, would not prove my
+claim to being a gentleman, especially against the facts of the
+case; so I cooled down, and walked home rather silently, and in not
+the best humour with myself.
+
+On the next morning, I took up a little book from my wife's bureau,
+and sat down to look over it while waiting for the breakfast bell.
+It was a book of aphorisms, and I opened at once to a page where a
+leaf was turned down. A slight dot with a pencil directed my eyes to
+a particular line, which read--
+
+"_He who lives in a glass house shouldn't throw stones_."
+
+I am not sure that Mrs. Sunderland turned down that leaf in the
+book, and marked the sentiment for my especial benefit; though I
+strongly suspected her. At any rate, I deemed it best not to ask the
+question.
+
+
+
+
+GOING INTO MOURNING.
+
+
+THE weeping mother bent over the beautiful form of innocent
+childhood--beautiful still, though its animating spirit had
+fled--and kissed the pale cheek of her dear departed one. When she
+lifted her head, a tear glistened on the cold brow of the babe. Then
+the father looked his last look, and, with an effort, controlled the
+emotion that wellnigh mastered him. The sisters came next, with
+audible sobs, and cheeks suffused with tears. A moment or two they
+gazed upon the expressionless face of their dear little playfellow,
+and then the coffin lid was shut down, while each one present
+experienced a momentary feeling of suffocation.
+
+As the funeral procession came out of the door, and the family
+passed slowly across the pavement to the carriages, a few gossiping
+neighbours--such as, with no particular acquaintance with the
+principal members of a household, know all about the internal
+management of every dwelling in the square--assembled close by, and
+thus discoursed of the events connected with the burying.
+
+"Poor Mrs. Condy," said one, "how can she bear the loss of that
+sweet little fellow!"
+
+"Other people have lost children as well as she," remarked a
+sour-looking dame. "Rich people, thank heaven! have to feel as well
+as we poor folks."
+
+No one seemed disposed to reply to this; and there was a momentary
+silence.
+
+"They've got up mourning mighty quick," said a third speaker.
+"Little Willie only died yesterday morning."
+
+"It's most all borrowed, I suppose," responded a fourth.
+
+"Hardly," said the other.
+
+"Yes, but I know that it is, though," added the individual who made
+the allegation of borrowing; "because, you see, Lucy, the
+chambermaid, told me last night, that Mrs. Condy had sent her to
+borrow her sister's black bombazine, and that the girls were all
+hard enough put to it to know where to get something decent to
+attend the funeral in."
+
+"No doubt, they thought more about mourning dresses, than they did
+about the dead child," remarked the cynic of the group.
+
+"It's a shame, Mrs. Grime, for you to talk in that way about any
+one," replied the woman who had first spoken.
+
+"It's the truth, Mrs. Myers," retorted Mrs. Grime. "By their works
+ye shall know them. You needn't tell me about people being so
+dreadful sorry at the loss of friends when they can make such a
+to-do about getting black to wear. These bombazine dresses and long
+black veils are truly enough called mourning--they are an excellent
+counterfeit, and deceive one half of the world. Ah, me! If all the
+money that was spent buying in mourning was given to the poor, there
+would be less misery in the world by a great deal."
+
+And while the little group, attracted by the solemn pageant, thus
+exercised the privilege of independent thought and free discussion,
+carriage after carriage was filled and moved off, and soon the whole
+passed out of sight.
+
+It was near the hour of twilight when the afflicted family returned,
+and after partaking of supper, sparingly, and in silence, the
+different members retired to their chambers, and at an early hour
+sought relief to their troubled thoughts in sleep.
+
+On the next morning, during the breakfast hour, Mrs. Condy broke the
+oppressive silence by asking of her husband the sum of fifty
+dollars.
+
+"What for, Sarah?" said Mr. Condy, looking into her face with an
+expression of grave inquiry.
+
+"It's the middle of the week now, you know, and therefore no time is
+to be lost in getting mourning. At any rate, it will be as much as a
+bargain to get dresses made by Sunday. Jane and Mary will have to go
+out this morning and buy the goods."
+
+Mr. Condy did not immediately reply, but seemed lost in deep and
+somewhat painful thought. At length, he said, looking his wife
+steadily in the face, but with a kind expression on his
+countenance--
+
+"Sarah, black dresses and an outside imposing show of mourning
+cannot make us any the more sorry for the loss of our dear little
+one," and his voice gave way and slightly trembled at the last word,
+and the moisture dimmed his eyes.
+
+"Yes, but, Mr. Condy, it would seem wicked and unfeeling not to put
+on mourning," said his wife in an earnest voice, for the idea of
+non-conformity to the custom of society, so suddenly presented to
+her mind, obscured for the moment the heart-searching sorrow
+awakened by the loss of her youngest born and dearest. "How can you
+think of such a thing?"
+
+"Why, father, it would never do in the world," added the eldest
+daughter, Jane. "I should feel condemned as long as I lived, if I
+were to neglect so binding a duty."
+
+"And what would people say?" asked Mary, whose simple mind perceived
+at once the strongest motive that operated in favour of the mourning
+garments.
+
+"I don't see, Mary," replied Mr. Condy, "that other people have any
+thing at all to do in this matter. We know our grief to be real, and
+need no artificial incitements to keep it alive. Black garments
+cannot add to our sorrow."
+
+But Mrs. Condy shook her head, and the daughters shook their heads,
+and the end of the matter was, Mr. Condy's purse-strings were
+loosened, and the required amount of money handed over.
+
+After thinking a good deal about the matter, Mary suggested, about
+an hour after breakfast, that it would not look well for her and
+Jane to be seen shopping, and Willie only buried the day before; and
+it was agreed to send for Ellen Maynard, who always sewed in the
+family when there was much to do, and get her to make the purchases.
+This determined, Lucy was despatched for Ellen.
+
+The reader will transfer his mental vision to a small but neat and
+comfortable room in another part of the town. The inmates are two.
+One, with a pale, thin face, and large bright eyes, reclines upon a
+bed. The other is seated by a window, sewing.
+
+"I think I will try to sit up a little, Ellen," said the former,
+raising herself up with an effort.
+
+"I wouldn't, if I were you, Margaret," replied the other, dropping
+her work and coming to the bedside. "You had better keep still, or
+that distressing cough may come back again."
+
+"Indeed, sister," returned the invalid, "I feel so restless that it
+is almost impossible to lie here. Let me sit up a little while, and
+I am sure I shall feel better."
+
+Ellen did not oppose her further, but assisted her to a large
+rocking-chair, and, after placing a pillow at her back, resumed her
+work.
+
+"I can't help thinking of Mrs. Condy's little Willie," said Ellen,
+after a pause. "Dear little fellow! How much they must all feel his
+loss."
+
+"He is better off, though," remarked the sister; but even that idea
+could not keep her eyes from glistening. The thought of death always
+referred itself to her own near approach to the thick shadows and
+the dark valley.
+
+"Yes, he is with the angels," was the brief response of Ellen.
+
+Just at that moment the door opened, and Mrs. Condy's chambermaid
+entered.
+
+"Good morning, Lucy, how do you do?" said Ellen, rising. "How is
+Mrs. Condy and all the family?"
+
+"They are very well, Miss Ellen," replied Lucy. "Mrs. Condy wants
+you to come there this morning and go and buy the mourning for the
+family. And then they want you to come and sew all this week, and
+part of next, too."
+
+Ellen glanced at her sister, involuntarily, and then said--
+
+"I am afraid, Lucy, that I can't go. Margaret is very poorly, and I
+don't see how I can possibly leave her."
+
+"O yes, you can go, Ellen," said Margaret. "You can fix me what I
+want, and come home every night. I'll do well enough."
+
+Ellen paused a few moments, and then turning to Lucy, said--
+
+"Tell Mrs. Condy that I will come round in the course of half an
+hour."
+
+Lucy went away, and Ellen, after sitting irresolute for some
+minutes, said--
+
+"I don't think, sister, that I can do any thing more for Mrs. Condy
+than her shopping. I wouldn't like to leave you alone. You know how
+bad your cough is sometimes."
+
+"I'll do well enough through the day, Ellen," replied Margaret,
+though her feeble voice and languid manner told too plainly that she
+could not do very well at any time. "You know that our rent will be
+due in two weeks, and that you haven't yet got enough to pay it."
+
+"That is very true," said Ellen, somewhat sadly. "Anyhow, I'll go to
+Mrs. Condy's, and will think about the matter."
+
+After dressing herself, Ellen insisted that her sister should lie
+down. She then placed a small table close to the bed, upon which was
+set a few articles of food, and a vial of cough medicine. After
+charging Margaret to keep very quiet, and to try to sleep, she
+turned upon her a look of deep and yearning affection, and then
+hurried away.
+
+The sight of Ellen, and the necessary allusion to the recent
+afflicting loss, caused the tears of the mother and sisters to flow
+afresh. But these were soon dried up, and so much were the minds of
+each interested in the idea of the mourning dresses, and in the
+necessary directions to be given, that few traces of the real
+affliction which had wrung their hearts remained, for the time,
+perceptible. The orders received by Ellen were promptly filled at
+the store where the family usually purchased their dry-goods, and
+the various articles sent home. The bundles arrived about the same
+time that Ellen returned. Then came a careful examination of the
+shades of colour and quality of the goods. These proving
+satisfactory, Jane said--
+
+"And now, Ellen, mother's dress, and Mary's, and mine must be done
+this week. We'll all help you. Mary and I can make the skirts and
+bind cord for you, and do a good deal on the dresses. You can get
+them done, easily enough?"
+
+"Indeed, Miss Jane," replied Ellen, and her voice was not steady, "I
+hardly know what to say. Sister is worse than she has ever been; and
+I don't see how I can leave her alone. She coughs terribly; and is
+so weak, that she can only sit up a little while. She has failed
+very fast within a week."
+
+"But you know this is a case particularly pressing," said Mrs.
+Condy. "There seems to be no help for it. There is no one we can get
+but you, now; and you know we give you all our sewing, and depend on
+you. Lucy says that Margaret is willing to have you come, and says
+that she can get on very well."
+
+Ellen paused a moment or two, and then replied, with an expression
+of sadness in her voice--"I will make the dresses for you, Mrs.
+Condy, but you must all help me as much as you can, so that I can
+get home every evening. It won't do to let Margaret be alone all
+night, for her cough is much worse in the evening, and before day in
+the morning."
+
+Neither Mrs. Condy nor her daughters replied to this. Mentally, they
+deemed it impossible for Ellen to go home at night. But they did not
+wish to say so. It was Wednesday, and all the afternoon was consumed
+in cutting, fitting, and basting the dresses. Night came, and Ellen,
+after tea, prepared to go home. Some slight objection was made; but
+she was resolute. It was some time after dark when she came in sight
+of her chamber window. It showed that there was no light within.
+Instantly she sprang forward, and soon bounded up the stairs and
+into the room.
+
+"Margaret!--How are you, Margaret?" she said, pressing up to the
+bedside, and putting her hand upon the forehead of her sister. It
+was cold and clammy. A violent fit of coughing prevented a reply. A
+light was obtained in a few minutes, and showed the countenance of
+Margaret slightly distorted from difficult breathing, and her
+forehead perceptibly corrugated.
+
+"You are worse, sister!" exclaimed Ellen, kissing her damp forehead.
+
+"No, not much worse. My cough is only a little troublesome," was the
+quiet reply.
+
+"You have had no supper yet, of course," said Ellen. "A cup of hot
+tea will do you good."
+
+This was soon prepared, and Margaret ate with a keen appetite.
+After tea, she was much better. The cold perspiration ceased, and
+her skin became dry and warm. A brief conversation passed between
+the sisters, when Margaret fell off into a pleasant slumber. On the
+next morning, with much reluctance and many misgivings as to whether
+it were right to leave her sister alone, Ellen went to Mrs. Condy's.
+Before going, however, she asked the kind neighbour who lived below,
+to look in occasionally, and to see that Margaret had a good cup of
+tea for dinner. This was promised, and she felt lighter at heart.
+
+Ellen worked hard through that day; but when night came, with all
+the help she had received, the first dress was not finished. Unless
+one dress were finished each day, the three could not be done by
+Sunday; and this not being the case on the first day, how could she
+go home that night? for if she worked a few hours longer, the
+garment would be ready for the wearer.
+
+"I must run home a little while," said she, mentally, "and then come
+back again. But how can I leave Margaret all night? She may die!"
+The thought caused her to shudder.
+
+At length she said to Mrs. Condy--
+
+"I can't leave sister all night, madam. But I can take your dress
+home with me, and by sitting up late, I can easily finish it. You
+will have no objection to my doing this, I hope?"
+
+Mrs. Condy paused a moment, for she did feel an objection to this
+being done; but humanity prevailed, and she consented. This relieved
+Ellen's mind very greatly, and she bundled up the dress, and hurried
+away with it. Margaret appeared more feeble than she was in the
+morning; and her cough was very troublesome. It was nearly twelve
+o'clock when the last stitch was taken in Mrs. Condy's dress. And
+then Ellen retired to her bed. But it was a long time before she
+could sleep. The nervous excitement, induced by protracted labour
+and great anxiety of mind, drove slumber from her eyelids for many
+hours. Towards morning she fell into a troubled sleep, and awoke at
+daylight unrefreshed.
+
+This day was Friday, and Jane's dress came next in turn. Ellen
+applied herself with even greater assiduity than she had used on the
+preceding day; but, as Jane's dress required more trimming, and less
+assistance was given her on it, the progress she made towards its
+completion was in no way promising. After dinner her head began to
+ache, and continued its throbbing, almost blinding pain, until the
+evening twilight began to fall, and the darkness compelled her to
+suspend her work.
+
+"Why, Ellen, Jane's dress isn't nigh done," said Mary, in tones of
+surprise, on coming into the room, at the moment Ellen laid the
+garment aside.
+
+"No, but I'll finish it to-night," replied Ellen.
+
+"Why, it'll take you pretty much all night to finish this," she
+said, lifting and examining her sister's dress. "How in the world
+did you get so behindhand, Ellen?"
+
+"This is a harder dress to make than your mother's," replied Ellen;
+"and besides having had less help on it, my head has ached very
+badly all the afternoon."
+
+Without seeming to notice the last reason given, Mary said--
+
+"Well, if you can possibly get it done to-night, Ellen, you must do
+so. It would never answer in the world not to have all the dresses
+done by to-morrow night."
+
+"I will have it done," was the brief reply, made in a low tone.
+
+Jane's dress was taken home that night, unfinished by full six or
+seven hours' work. As Ellen had feared, she found Margaret suffering
+much from her cough. After preparing some food for her sister, whose
+appetite still remained good, she drank a cup of tea, and then sat
+down to work upon the mourning garment. Towards midnight, Margaret,
+who had fallen asleep early in the evening, began to grow restless,
+and to moan as if in pain. Every now and then, Ellen would pause in
+her work and look towards the bed, with an anxious countenance; and
+once or twice she got up, and stood over her sister; but she did not
+awake. It was three o'clock when the last stitch was taken, and then
+Margaret's cough had awakened her, and she seemed to suffer so much
+from that and from difficult breathing, that Ellen, even after lying
+down, did not go to sleep for an hour. It was long after sunrise
+when she awoke.
+
+"Must you go to-day, too?" inquired Margaret, looking into her
+sister's face anxiously, on seeing her, after the hastily prepared
+breakfast had been eaten, take up her bonnet and shawl.
+
+"Yes, Margaret, I must go to-day. There is one more dress to be
+made, and that must be done. But after to-day, I won't go out
+anywhere again until you are better."
+
+"I don't think I shall ever be better again, Ellen," said the sick
+girl. "I am getting so weak; and I feel just as if I shouldn't stay
+here but a little while. You don't know how strange I feel
+sometimes. Oh, I wish you didn't have to go out to-day!" And she
+looked so earnestly into the face of her sister, that the tears
+sprung into Ellen's eyes.
+
+"If I can persuade them to put this last dress off until next week,
+and then get some one else to make it, I will," said the sister:
+"but if I can't, Margaret, try and keep up your spirits. I'll ask
+Mrs. Ryland, down-stairs, to come and sit with you a little while at
+a time through the day; and so if I can't; get off, you won't be
+altogether without company."
+
+"I wish you would, sister, for I feel so lonesome sometimes,"
+replied Margaret, mournfully.
+
+Mrs. Ryland consented, for she was a kind-hearted woman, and liked
+the sisters, and Ellen hurried away to Mrs. Condy's.
+
+"You are very late this morning, ain't you?" said Mary Condy, as
+Ellen entered with Jane's finished dress.
+
+"I am a little late, Miss Mary, but I sat up until three o'clock
+this morning, and overslept myself in consequence."
+
+"Well, you'll finish my dress to-day, of course?"
+
+"Really, Miss Mary, I hardly know what to say about it. Sister is so
+very poorly, that I am almost afraid to leave her alone. Can't you
+in any way put yours off until next week? I have been up nearly all
+night for two nights, and feel very unwell this morning." And
+certainly her pale cheeks, sunken eyes, and haggard countenance
+fully confirmed her statement.
+
+"It will be impossible, Ellen," was Mary's prompt and positive
+response. "I must go to church to-morrow, and cannot, of course, go
+out, without my black dress."
+
+With a sigh, Ellen sat down and resumed her needle. After a while
+she said--
+
+"Miss Mary, I cannot finish your dress, unless you and your sister
+help me a good deal."
+
+"Oh, we'll do that, of course," replied Mary, getting up and leaving
+the room.
+
+It was nearly eleven o'clock before Mary thought of helping Ellen
+any, and then two or three young ladies came in to pay a visit of
+condolence, and prevented her. Tears were shed at first; and then
+gradually a more cheerful tone of feeling succeeded, and so much
+interested were the young ladies in each other's company, that the
+moments passed rapidly away, and advanced the time near on to the
+dinner hour. It was full three o'clock before Mary and Jane sat
+themselves down to help Ellen. The afternoon seemed almost to fly
+away, and when it was nightfall, the dress was not half finished.
+
+"Will it be possible to get it done to-night?" asked Mrs. Condy.
+
+"It will be hard work, madam," said Ellen, whose heart was with her
+sister.
+
+"Oh, it can be finished," said Mary, "if we all work hard for two or
+three hours. The fact is, it must be done. I wouldn't miss having it
+for the world."
+
+With a sigh, Ellen turned again to her work; though feeble nature
+was wellnigh sinking under the task forced upon her. It was past
+eleven o'clock when the dress was finished, and Ellen prepared to go
+home to her sister.
+
+"But you are not going home to-night?" said Mr. Condy, who was now
+present.
+
+"O yes, sir. I haven't seen sister since morning, and she's very
+ill."
+
+"What is the matter with your sister?" asked Mr. Condy, in a kind
+tone.
+
+"I'm afraid she's got the consump--" It vas the first time Ellen had
+attempted to utter the word, and the sound, even though the whole of
+it remained unspoken, broke down her feelings, and she burst into
+tears.
+
+Instinctively, Mr. Condy reached for his hat and cane, and as he saw
+Ellen recover, by a strong effort, her self-possession, he said--
+
+"It is too late for you to go home alone, Ellen, and as we cannot
+ask you, under the circumstances, to stay all night, I will go with
+you."
+
+Ellen looked her gratitude, for she was really afraid to go into the
+street alone at that late hour. As they walked along, Mr. Condy, by
+many questions, ascertained that Ellen had been almost compelled to
+work day and night to make up mourning garments for his family, and
+to absent herself from her sick sister, while she needed her most
+careful attention. Arrived at her humble dwelling, his benevolent
+feelings prompted him to ascertain truly the condition of Margaret,
+for his heart misgave him that her end was very nigh.
+
+On entering the chamber, they found Mrs. Ryland, the neighbour who
+lived below, supporting Margaret in the bed, who was gasping for
+breath as if every moment in fear of suffocation. Ellen sprung
+forward with a sudden exclamation, and, taking Mrs. Ryland's place,
+let the head of her sister fall gently upon her bosom. Mr. Condy
+looked on for a moment, and then hastily retired. As soon as he
+reached home, he despatched a servant for the family physician, with
+a special request to have him visit Ellen's sister immediately. He
+then went into his wife's chamber, where the daughters, with their
+mother, were engaged in looking over their new morning apparel.
+
+"I'm afraid," said he, "that you have unintentionally been guilty of
+a great wrong."
+
+"How?" asked Mrs. Condy, looking up with sudden surprise.
+
+"In keeping Ellen here so late from her sister, who is, I fear, at
+this moment dying."
+
+"Is it possible!" exclaimed the mother and daughters with looks of
+alarm.
+
+"It is, I fear, too true. But now, all that can be done is to try
+and make some return. I want you, Mary, and your mother, to put on
+your bonnets and shawls and go with me. Something may yet be done
+for poor Margaret. I have already sent for the doctor."
+
+On the instant Mrs. Condy and Mary prepared themselves, and the
+former put into a small basket some sugar and a bottle of wine, and
+handed it to her husband, who accompanied them, at that late hour,
+to the dwelling of the two sisters. On entering the chamber, they
+found no one present but Ellen and Margaret. The latter still
+reclined with her head on her sister's bosom, and seemed to have
+fallen into a gentle slumber, so quiet did she lay. Ellen looked up
+on the entrance of Mr. and Mrs. Condy, with Mary; and they saw that
+her eyes were filled with tears, and that two large drops stood upon
+her cheeks. She made a motion for them to be seated, but did not
+rise from her place on the bed, nor stir by the least movement of
+her body the still sleeper who leaned upon her breast. For nearly
+fifteen minutes, the most profound silence reigned throughout the
+chamber. The visitors understood the whole scene, and almost held
+their breaths, lest even the respiration, that to them seemed
+audible, should disturb the repose of the invalid. At the end of
+this time the physician entered, and broke the oppressive stillness.
+But neither his voice nor his step, nor the answers and explanations
+which necessarily took place, restored Margaret to apparent
+consciousness. After feeling her pulse for some time, he said--
+
+"It will not be necessary to disturb her while she sleeps; but if
+she becomes restless, a little wine may be given. In the morning I
+will see her early," and he made a movement to go.
+
+"Doctor," said Ellen, looking him eagerly in the face, "tell me
+truly--is she not dying?"
+
+For a moment the physician looked upon the earnest, tearful girl,
+and read in her countenance that hope and fear held there a painful
+struggle.
+
+"While there is life, there is hope," he replied briefly.
+
+"Tell me the truth, doctor, I can bear it," she urged appealingly.
+"If my sister is going to die, I wish to know it."
+
+"I have seen many recover who appeared nearer to death than she is,"
+he replied, evasively. "As I have just said, where there is life,
+there is hope."
+
+Ellen turned from him, evidently disappointed at the answer, and the
+doctor went down-stairs, accompanied by Mr. Condy. The two remained
+some minutes in conversation below, and when the latter returned he
+found his wife and daughter standing by the bedside, and Margaret
+exhibiting many signs of restlessness. She kept rolling her head
+upon the pillow, and throwing her hands about uneasily. In a few
+minutes she began to moan and mutter incoherently. After a little
+while her eyes flew suddenly open, and she pronounced the name of
+Ellen quickly.
+
+"I am here, Margaret," replied the sister, bending over her.
+
+"Oh, Ellen, why did you stay away so long?" she said, looking up
+into her face half reproachfully, and seeming not to observe the
+presence of others. "I was so lonesome all day; and then at night I
+waited and waited, and you didn't come home! You won't go away any
+more--will you, Ellen?"
+
+"No--no, sister, I won't leave you again," said Ellen, soothingly,
+her tears starting afresh.
+
+The words of Margaret smote upon the heart of Mary, whose great
+eagerness to get the mourning dress done, so that she could go out
+on Sunday, had been the cause of Ellen's long detention from her
+sick sister. She hastily turned away from the bed, and seated
+herself by the window, As she sat there, the image of her
+baby-brother came up vividly before her mind, and with it the
+feeling of desolation which the loss of a dear one always occasions.
+And with this painful emotion of grief, there arose in her mind a
+distinct consciousness that, since her thoughts had become
+interested in the getting and making up of her mourning dress, she
+had felt but little of the keen sorrow that had at first overwhelmed
+her, and that now came back upon her mind like a flood. As she sat
+thus in silent communion with herself, she was enabled to perceive
+that, in her own mind, there had been much less of a desire to
+commemorate the death of her brother, in putting on mourning, than
+to appear before others to be deeply affected with grief. She saw
+that the black garments were not to remind herself of the dear
+departed one, but to show to others that the babe was still
+remembered and still mourned. In her present state of keen
+perception of interior and true motives, she felt deeply humbled,
+and inwardly resolved that, on the morrow, she would not go out for
+the too vain purpose of displaying her mourning apparel. Just as
+this resolution became fixed in her mind, a sudden movement at the
+bedside arrested her attention, and she again joined the group
+there.
+
+Her heart throbbed with a sudden and quicker pulsation, as her eye
+fell upon the face of Margaret. A great change had passed upon it;
+death had placed his sign there, and no eye could misunderstand its
+import. Rapidly now did the work of dissolution go on, and just as
+the day dawned, Margaret sank quietly away into that deep sleep that
+knows no earthly waking.
+
+After rendering all such offices as were required, Mrs. Condy and
+Mary went home, the latter promising Ellen that she would return and
+remain with her through the day. At the breakfast table, Mr. Condy
+so directed the conversation as to give the solemn event they had
+been called to witness its true impression upon the minds of his
+family. Before the meal closed, it was resolved that Jane and Mary
+should go to the humble dwelling of Ellen, and remain with her
+through the day; and that after the funeral, the expense of which
+Mr. Condy said he would bear, Ellen should be offered a permanent
+home.
+
+The funeral took place on Monday, and was attended by Mr. Condy's
+family. On the next day Mrs. Condy called on Ellen, and invited her
+to come home with her, and to remain there. The offer was thankfully
+accepted.
+
+During the day, and while Ellen, assisted by Jane and Mary, was at
+work on black dresses for the younger children, Mr. and Mrs. Condy
+came into the room: the latter had a piece of bombazine in her hand.
+
+"Here is a dress for you, Ellen," she said, handing her the piece of
+bombazine.
+
+Ellen looked up with a sudden expression of surprise; her face
+flushed an instant, and then grew pale.
+
+"You will want a black dress, Ellen," resumed Mrs. Condy, "and I
+have bought you one."
+
+"I do not wish to put on black," said she, with a slightly
+embarrassed look and an effort to smile, while her voice trembled
+and was hardly audible.
+
+"And why not, Ellen?" urged Mrs. Condy.
+
+"I never liked black," she replied evasively. "And, anyhow, it would
+do no good," she added somewhat mournfully, as if the former reason
+struck her on the instant as being an insufficient one.
+
+"No, child, it wouldn't do any good," said Mr. Condy, tenderly and
+with emotion. "And if you don't care about having it, don't take
+it."
+
+Mrs. Condy laid the proffered dress aside, and Ellen again bent
+silently over her work. The hearts of all present were touched by
+her simple and true remark, "that it would do no good," and each one
+respected her the more, that she shunned all exterior manifestation
+of the real sorrow that they knew oppressed her spirits. And never
+did they array themselves in their sombre weeds, that the thought of
+Ellen's unobtrusive grief did not come up and chide them.
+
+
+
+
+IF THAT WERE MY CHILD!
+
+
+"AH, good evening, Mr. Pelby! Good evening, Mr. Manly! I am glad to
+see you! Mrs. Little and I were just saying that we wished some
+friends would step in."
+
+"Well, how do you do this evening, Mrs. Little?" said Mr. Pelby,
+after they were all seated. "You look remarkably well. And how is
+your little family?"
+
+"We are all bright and hearty," Mrs. Little replied, smiling.
+"Little Tommy has just gone off to bed. If you had come in a few
+minutes sooner, you would have seen the dear little fellow. He's as
+lively and playful as a cricket."
+
+"How old is he now?" asked Mr. Manly.
+
+"He will be two years and six months old the twenty-third of next
+month."
+
+"Just the age of my Edward. How much I should like to see him!"
+
+"I don't think he has gone to sleep yet," said the fond mother of an
+only child, rising and going off to her chamber.
+
+"You bachelors don't sympathize much with us fathers of families,"
+said Mr. Little, laughing, to Mr. Pelby.
+
+"How should we?"
+
+"True enough! But then you can envy us; and no doubt do."
+
+"It's well enough for you to think so, Little. But, after all, I
+expect we are the better off."
+
+"Don't flatter yourself in any such way, Mr. Pelby. I've been"--
+
+"Here's the darling!" exclaimed Mrs. Little, bounding gayly in the
+room at the moment, with Tommy, who was laughing and tossing his
+arms about in delight at being taken up from his bed, into which he
+had gone reluctantly.
+
+"Come to pa, Tommy," said Mr. Little, reaching out his hands. "Now
+ain't that a fine little fellow?" he continued, looking from face to
+face of his two friends, and showing off Tommy to the best possible
+advantage that his night-gown would permit. And he was a sweet
+child; with rosy cheeks, bright blue eyes, and clustering golden
+ringlets.
+
+"Indeed he is a lovely child," Mr. Manly said earnestly.
+
+"A very fine child," Mr. Pelby remarked, mechanically.
+
+"We'll match him with the town!" broke in Mrs. Little, unable to
+keep down the upswelling, delighted affection of her heart.
+
+By this time, Tommy's bewildered senses were restored, and he began
+to look about him with lively interest. His keen eyes soon detected
+Mr. Pelby's bright gold chain and swivel, and well knowing that it
+betokened a watch, he slid quickly down from his father's lap, and
+stood beside the knee of the nice bachelor visitor.
+
+"He's not afraid of strangers," said Mrs. Little, her eyes sparkling
+with pleasure, as they followed every movement of her child.
+
+"Tee watch," said Tommy.
+
+"It'll bite," said Mr. Pelby.
+
+"Tee watch!" reiterated the child, grasping the chain.
+
+With not the best grace in the world, Mr. Pelby drew out his
+beautiful gold lever, and submitted it to the rude grasp, as he
+thought, of Tommy.
+
+"Oh, ma! ma! Tee watch! tee watch!" cried the child, almost wild
+with delight--at the same time advancing towards her as far as the
+chain would permit, and then tugging at it as hard as he could, to
+the no small discomfort of the visitor, who, seeing no movement of
+relief on the part of either parent, was forced to slip the chain
+over his head, and trust Tommy to carry his favourite time-keeper to
+his mother.
+
+"Tommy'll be a watch-maker, I expect. Nothing pleases him so much as
+a watch," remarked the father.
+
+Mr. Pelby did not reply. He dared not, for he felt that, were he to
+trust himself to speak, he should betray feelings that politeness
+required him to conceal.
+
+"There!" suddenly exclaimed the mother, catching eagerly at the
+watch, which Tommy had dropped, and recovering it just in time to
+save it from injury.
+
+"Gim me! gim me! gim me!" cried Tommy, seizing her hands, and
+endeavouring to get possession again of the valuable timepiece,
+which had escaped so narrowly.
+
+"There, now," said Mrs. Little, yielding to the child's eager
+importunity, and permitting him again to take possession of the
+watch. "But you must hold it tighter."
+
+Mr. Pelby was on nettles; but he dared not interfere.
+
+"Open it," said Tommy, endeavouring to loose the hinge of the case
+with his tiny thumb-nail.
+
+"Oh, no; you mustn't open it, Tommy."
+
+"Open it!" resumed Tommy, in a higher and more positive tone.
+
+"I can't open it," said the mother, pretending to make an earnest
+effort to loose the case.
+
+"_O-pen--it!_" screamed the child, in a loud angry tone.
+
+"Here, take it to Mr. Pelby, he will open it for you." And the watch
+was again intrusted to Tommy's care, who bore it, and, as fortune
+would have it, safely too, to its owner.
+
+Of course, Mr. Pelby could do no better, and so he displayed the
+jewels and internal arrangement of his skeleton lever to the curious
+gaze of the child. At first, Tommy was well pleased to look alone:
+but soon the ends of his fingers itched to touch, and touch he did,
+quite promptly; and, of course, Mr. Pelby very naturally drew back
+the hand that held the watch; and just as naturally did Tommy
+suddenly extend his and grasp the receding prize. With some
+difficulty, Mr. Pelby succeeded in disengaging the fingers of the
+child, and then hastily closing the watch, he slipped it into his
+pocket.
+
+"There, it's gone!" said he.
+
+"Tee de watch!" replied Tommy.
+
+"It's gone clear off."
+
+"Tee de watch!" said Tommy more emphatically.
+
+"Here, come see mine," said the father.
+
+"No," replied the child, angrily.
+
+Mr. Pelby, to quiet Tommy, now took him upon his lap, and called his
+attention to a large cameo breast-pin. This pleased him at once, and
+he amused himself with pulling at it, and sadly rumpling the
+visitor's snow-white bosom. Next he began to dive into his pockets,
+revealing pen-knife, tooth-pick, etc. etc. This was worse than to
+let him have the watch; and so, as a lesser evil, the gold lever was
+again drawn from its hiding-place. The little fellow was once more
+wild with delight.
+
+But Pelby was so evidently annoyed, that Mr. Little could not help
+observing it; and he at length said to his wife--
+
+"Hadn't you better take Tommy up-stairs, my dear? He is too
+troublesome."
+
+Mr. Pelby had it on his tongue's end to say, "Oh, no, he don't
+trouble me at all!" But he was afraid--not to tell a falsehood--but
+that the child would be suffered to remain; so he said nothing.
+
+"Come, Tommy," said Mrs. Little, holding out her hands.
+
+"No!" replied the child emphatically.
+
+"Come."
+
+"No!" still louder and more emphatic.
+
+"Yes, come, dear."
+
+"No, I won't!"
+
+"Yes, but you must!" Mrs. Little said, taking hold of him.
+
+At this, Tommy clung around the neck of Mr. Pelby, struggling and
+kicking with all his might against the effort of his mother to
+disengage him; who finally succeeded, and bore him, screaming at the
+top of his voice, from the room.
+
+"If that were my child," said Mr. Pelby, after they had left the
+house, "I'd half kill him but what I'd make a better boy of him! I
+never saw such an ill-behaved, graceless little rascal in my life!"
+
+"Children are children, Mr. Pelby," quietly remarked his auditor,
+Mr. Manly, who had half a dozen "little responsibilities" himself.
+
+"Hard bargains at the best, I know. But then I have seen
+good-behaved children; and, if parents would only take proper pains
+with them, all might be trained to good behaviour and obedience. If
+I had a child, it would act different, I know, from what that one
+did this evening."
+
+"Old bachelors' children, you know," Mr. Manly said, with a smile.
+
+"O yes, I know. But silly adages don't excuse neglectful parents,"
+replied Mr. Pelby, a little touched at the allusion.
+
+"That is true, Mr. Pelby. But what I meant you to understand by the
+remark was, that those who have no children of their own are too
+often wanting in a due consideration and forbearance towards those
+of other people. I have quite a house full and I know that I take
+great pains with them, and that the true management of them costs me
+much serious consideration; and yet I have known some of mine to act
+much worse than Tommy Little did this evening."
+
+"Well, all I have to say in the matter, friend Manly, is this:--If I
+had a child that acted as rudely as that young one did to-night, I
+would, teach him a lesson that he would not forget for the next
+twelve months."
+
+"You don't know what you would do, if you had a child, Pelby. An
+active, restless child requires patience and continued forbearance;
+and, if it should be your lot to have such a one, I am sure your
+natural affection and good sense would combine to prevent your
+playing the unreasonable tyrant over it."
+
+"Perhaps it would. But I am sure I should not think my natural
+affection and good sense pledged to let my child do as he pleased,
+and annoy every one that came to the house."
+
+"You were exceedingly annoyed, then, to-night?"
+
+"Annoyed! Why, I could hardly sit in my chair towards the last. And
+when the young imp came pawing me and climbing over me, I could
+hardly help tossing him off of my lap upon the floor."
+
+"You did not seem so much worried. I really thought you were pleased
+with the little fellow."
+
+"Now, that is too bad, Manly! I'd as lief had a monkey screwing and
+twisting about in my lap. It was as much as I could do to be civil
+to either his father or mother for suffering their brat to tease me
+as he did. First, I must be kissed by his bread and butter mouth;
+and then he made me suffer a kind of martyrdom in fear of my elegant
+lever. A watch is not the thing for a child to play with, and I am
+astonished at Little for suffering his young one to annoy a visitor
+in that way."
+
+"Blame them as much as you please, but don't feel unkindly towards
+the child," said Manly. "He knows no better. Your watch delighted
+him, and of course he wanted it, and any attempt to deprive him of
+it was very naturally resisted. His parents are fond of him--and
+well they may be--and pet him a great deal; thus he has learned to
+expect every visitor to notice him, and also expects to notice and
+make free with every visitor. This is all very natural."
+
+"Natural enough, and so is it to steal; but that don't make it
+right. Children should be taught, from the first, to be reserved in
+the presence of strangers, and never to come near them unless
+invited. If I had one, I'll be bound he wouldn't disgrace me as
+Little's child did him to-night."
+
+"We'll see, one of these days, perhaps," was Manly's quiet remark;
+and the friends parted company.
+
+Ten years often make a great difference in a man's condition,
+habits, and feelings. Ten years passed away, and Mr. Pelby was a
+husband, and the father of three interesting children,--indulged, of
+course, and "pretty considerably" spoiled, yet interesting withal,
+and, in the eyes of their father, not to be compared for beauty,
+good manners, etc. with any other children inhabiting the same city.
+William, the oldest boy, had not quite completed his sixth year.
+Emma, a rosy-cheeked, chubby little thing, when asked her age, could
+say--
+
+"Four years old last June."
+
+And Henry was just the age that Tommy Little was when he so terribly
+annoyed Mr. Pelby. Now, as to Henry's accomplishments, they were
+many and various. He could be a good boy when he felt in a pleasant
+humour, and could storm, and fret, and pout in a way so well
+understood by all parents, that it would be a work of supererogation
+to describe it here. But strange mutation of disposition!--Mr. Pelby
+could bear these fits of perverseness with a philosophy that would
+have astonished even himself, could he have for a moment realized
+his former state of mind. When Henry became ill-tempered from any
+cause, he had, from loving him, learned that to get into an
+ill-humour also would be only adding fuel to flame; and so, on such
+occasions, he sought affectionately to calm and soothe his ruffled
+feelings. If Henry, or Emma, or William, from any exuberance of
+happy feelings, were noisy or boisterous, he did not think it right
+to check them suddenly, because he was a little annoyed. He tried,
+rather, to feel glad with them--to partake of their joy. In short,
+Mr. Pelby had grown into a domestic philosopher. A wife and two or
+three children do wonders sometimes!
+
+Now it so happened about this time, that Mr. and Mrs. Manly and Mr.
+and Mrs. Little were spending an evening with Mr. and Mrs. Pelby.
+William and Emma had their suppers prepared for them in the kitchen,
+and then, as usual, were put to bed; but "dear little Henry" was so
+interesting to his parents, and they naturally thought must be so
+interesting to their company, that he was allowed to sit up and come
+to the tea-table. As Mrs. Pelby had no dining-room, the back parlour
+was used for this purpose, and so all the progressive arrangements
+of the tea-table were visible.
+
+"Oh, dinne weddy! dinne weddy!" cried little Henry, sliding down
+from the lap of Mrs. Little--whose collar he had been rumpling so
+that it was hardly fit to be seen--as soon as he saw the cloth laid;
+and, running for a chair, he was soon perched up in it, calling
+lustily for "meat."
+
+"Oh, no, no, Henry! dinner not ready yet!" said Mrs. Pelby, starting
+forward, and endeavouring to remove the child from his seat; but
+Henry screamed and resisted.
+
+"Oh, let him sit, mother!" interfered Mr. Pelby. "The little dear
+don't understand waiting as we do."
+
+"Yes, but, father, it is time that he had learned. Tea isn't near
+ready yet; and if he is allowed to sit here, he will pull and haul
+every thing about," responded Mrs. Pelby.
+
+"Oh, never mind, mother! Give him some meat, and he'll be quiet
+enough. I never like to see little folks made to wait for grown
+people; they cannot understand nor appreciate the reason of it."
+
+And so little Henry was permitted to remain at the table, picking
+first at one thing and then at another, much to the discomfort and
+mortification of his mother, who could not see in this indulgence
+any thing very interesting. Mrs. Little was relieved, although her
+collar was disfigured for the evening past hope.
+
+After a while tea was announced, and the company sat down.
+
+"Me toffee! me toffee!" cried Henry, stretching out his hands
+impatiently. "Me toffee, ma! me toffee, ma!" as soon as Mrs. Pelby
+was seated before the tea-tray, and had commenced supplying the cups
+with cream and sugar.
+
+"Yes--yes--Henry shall have coffee. H-u-s-h--there--be quiet--that's
+a good boy," she said, soothingly. But--
+
+"Me toffee, ma! me toffee, ma! me toffee, ma!" was continued without
+a moment's cessation. "Ma! ma! ma! me toffee! me toffee!"
+
+"Yes, yes, yes! you shall have coffee in a moment; only be patient,
+child!" Mrs. Pelby now said, evidently worried; for Henry was crying
+at the top of his voice, and impatiently shaking his hands and
+vibrating his whole body.
+
+But he ceased not a moment until his mother, before any of the
+company had been served, prepared him a cup of milk and warm water,
+sweetened. Placing his lips to the edge of the cup, Henry drank the
+whole of it off before the table was more than half served.
+
+"Me more toffee, ma!"
+
+Mrs. Pelby paused, and looked him in the face with an expression of
+half despair and half astonishment.
+
+"Me more toffee, ma!" continued Henry.
+
+"Yes, wait a moment, and I'll give you more," she said.
+
+"More toffee, ma!" in a louder voice.
+
+"Yes, in a moment."
+
+"More toffee, ma!" This time louder and more impatiently.
+
+To keep the peace, a second cup of milk and water had to be
+prepared, and then Mrs. Pelby finished waiting on her company. But
+it soon appeared that the second cup had not really been wanted, for
+now that he had it, the child could not swallow more than two or
+three draughts. His amusement now consisted in playing in his saucer
+with a spoon, which being perceived by his mother, she said to him--
+
+"There now, Henry, you didn't want that, after all. Come, let me
+pour your tea back into the cup, and set the cup on the waiter, or
+you will spill it;" at the same time making a motion to do what she
+had proposed. But--
+
+"No! no! no!" cried the child, clinging to the saucer, and
+attempting to remove it out of his mother's reach. This he did so
+suddenly, that the entire contents were thrown into Mrs. Little's
+lap.
+
+"Bless me, Mrs. Little!" exclaimed Mrs. Pelby, really distressed;
+"that is too bad! Come, Henry, you must go away from the table;" at
+the same time attempting to remove him. But he cried--
+
+"No! no! no!" so loud, that she was constrained to desist.
+
+"There, let him sit; he won't do so any more," said Mr. Pelby. "That
+was very naughty, Henry. Come, now, if you want your tea, drink it,
+or let me put it away."
+
+Henry already knew enough of his father to be convinced that when he
+spoke in a certain low, emphatic tone, he was in earnest; and so he
+very quietly put his mouth down to his saucer and pretended to
+drink, though it would have been as strange as pouring water into a
+full cup without overflowing it, as for him to have let any more go
+down his throat, without spilling a portion already there out at the
+top.
+
+Tea was at last over, and Mrs. Little, on rising from the table, had
+opportunity and leisure to examine her beautiful silk, now worn for
+the second time. Fortunately, it was of a colour that tea would not
+injure, although it was by no means pleasant to have a whole front
+breadth completely saturated. Mrs. Pelby made many apologies, but
+Mr. Pelby called it a "family accident," and one of a kind that
+married people were so familiar with, as scarcely to be annoyed by
+them.
+
+"Come here, Henry," said he. "Just see what you have done! Now go
+kiss the lady, and say, 'I'm sorry.'"
+
+The little fellow's eye brightened, and going up to Mrs. Little, he
+pouted out his cherry lips, and, as she kissed him, he said, with a
+suddenly-assumed demure, penitent look--"I torry."
+
+"What's Henry sorry for?" asked Mrs. Little, instantly softening
+towards the child, and taking him on her knee.
+
+"I torry," he repeated, but in a much livelier tone, at the same
+time that he clambered up and stood in her lap, with his little
+hands again crushing her beautiful French collar.
+
+"Come here, Henry," said Mr. Manly, who saw that Mrs. Little was
+annoyed at this; but Henry would not move. He had espied a comb in
+Mrs. Little's head, and had just laid violent hands upon it,
+threatening every moment to flood that lady's neck and shoulders
+with her own dishevelled tresses.
+
+"Come and see my watch," said Mr. Manly.
+
+This was enough. Henry slid from Mrs. Little's lap instantly, and in
+the next minute was seated on Mr. Manly's knee, examining that
+gentleman's time-keeper. Between opening and shutting the watch,
+holding it first to his own and then to Mr. Manly's ear, Henry spent
+full a quarter of an hour. Even that considerate, kind-hearted
+gentleman's patience began to be impaired, and he could not help
+thinking that his friend, Mr. Pelby, ought to be thoughtful enough
+to relieve him. Once or twice he made a movement to replace the
+watch in his pocket, but this was instantly perceived and as
+promptly resisted. The little fellow had an instinctive perception
+that Mr. Manly did not wish him to have the watch, and for that very
+reason retained possession of it long beyond the time that he would
+have done if it had been fully relinquished to him.
+
+At last he tired of the glittering toy, and returned to annoy Mrs.
+Little; but she was saved by the appearance of a servant with fruit
+and cakes.
+
+"Dim me cake! dim me cake!" cried Henry, seizing hold of the
+servant's clothes, and pulling her so suddenly as almost to cause
+her to let fall the tray that was in her hands.
+
+To keep the peace, Henry was helped first of all to a slice of
+pound-cake.
+
+"Mo' cake," he said, in a moment or two after, unable to articulate
+with any degree of distinctness, for his mouth was so full that each
+cheek stood out, and his lips essayed in vain to close over the
+abundant supply within. Another piece was given, and this
+disappeared as quickly. Then he wanted an apple, and as soon as he
+got one, he cried for a second and a third. Then--
+
+But we will not chronicle the sayings and doings of little Henry
+further; more than to say, that he soon, from being allowed to sit
+up beyond the accustomed hour, grew fretful and exceedingly
+troublesome, preventing all pleasant intercourse between the
+visitors and visited, and that at nine o'clock he was carried off
+screaming to his bed.
+
+"If that were my child," said Mr. Little, pausing at his own door,
+and turning round to Mr. and Mrs. Manly, who had accompanied his
+wife thus far on their way home, "I would teach him better manners,
+or I would half kill him. I never saw such an ill-conditioned little
+imp in my life!"
+
+"Children are children, you know," was Mr. Manly's quiet reply.
+
+"Yes, but children may be made to behave, if any pains at all be
+taken with them. It is really unpardonable for any one to let a
+child like that worry visitors as he did us this evening."
+
+"Few children of his age, Mr. Little, unless of a remarkably quiet
+and obedient disposition, are much better than Pelby's little boy."
+
+"As to that, Mr. Manly," broke in Mrs. Little, "there's our Tommy, a
+fine boy of twelve, as you know. He never acted like that when he
+was a child. I never had a bit of trouble with him when we had
+company. We could bring him down into the parlour when he was of
+Henry Pelby's age, and he would go round and kiss all the ladies so
+sweetly, and then go off to bed, like a little man, as he was."
+
+"Ah, Mrs. Little, you forget," said Mr. Manly, laughing.
+
+"Oh, no, indeed, Mr. Manly. I don't forget these things. We could do
+any thing with Tommy at his age, and it was because we managed him
+rightly. You can do any thing with children you please."
+
+"Indeed, then, Mrs. Little, it is more than I can say," remarked
+Mrs. Manly. "If my children could be made any thing at all of, they
+would have been different from what they are; and yet, I believe,"
+she added, with a feeling of maternal pride, "they are not the worst
+children I have ever seen."
+
+"Good-nights" were now exchanged, and, after Mr. and Mrs. Manly had
+walked a few steps, the former said,
+
+"Well, this is a curious world that we live in. Ten years ago,
+Pelby, then a trim bachelor, as nice and particular as any of the
+tribe, said, in allusion to Tommy Little--'If that were my child, I
+would half kill him but what I'd make a better boy of him!'"
+
+"He did?"
+
+"Yes, those were his very words. We were spending an evening at Mr.
+and Mrs. Little's, and when Tommy was about two years old or so; and
+Pelby was terribly annoyed by him. He acted pretty much as all
+children do--that is, pretty much as Henry did to-night. But Pelby
+couldn't endure it with any kind of patience."
+
+"Ha! ha!" laughed out Mrs. Manly, in spite of herself. "How
+completely the tables have been turned!"
+
+"Yes, they have been, certainly. But what is a little singular is,
+that neither of the parties concerned seem to have gained wisdom by
+their experience. Pelby forgets how other people's children once
+annoyed him, and Mr. and Mrs. Little seem to be entirely unconscious
+that their paragon was very much like all other little boys when he
+was only about two or three years old. For my part, I think we
+should be careful not to let our children trespass upon visitors.
+None can feel the same interest in them that we do, or exercise the
+same forbearance towards their faults. Faults they all have, which
+need especial care in their correction; and these should be suffered
+to appear as rarely as possible under circumstances which prevent a
+salutary check being placed upon them. For this reason, you know, we
+have made it a matter of concert not to let our children, while, too
+young to understand something of propriety, be present, but for a
+very short time, when we had company. The moment they become rude or
+too familiar, they were quietly taken from the room."
+
+"Yes; and knowing as I do," said Mrs. Manly, "how very restless some
+children with active minds are, I am never disposed to look with
+unfavourable eyes upon any, even when wild, turbulent, and heedless.
+They act as they feel; and so far as evil affections show
+themselves, we know they are inherited, and that it is not in the
+power of the child to remove them. We should then be moved, it seems
+to me, with a purer affection for them; with something of pity mixed
+with our love, and, instead of suffering their wrong actions to
+repulse us, we should draw towards them with a desire to teach them
+what is wrong, and impart to them some power to overcome evil."
+
+"If all thought as you, Mary," said Mr. Manly, as they gained their
+own doors, "we should hear no one railing out against other people's
+children, while he indulged his own. A fault too common with most
+parents."
+
+
+
+
+I WILL!
+
+
+"YOU look sober, Laura. What has thrown a veil over your happy
+face?" said Mrs. Cleaveland to her niece, one morning, on finding
+her alone and with a very thoughtful countenance.
+
+"Do I really look sober?" and Laura smiled as she spoke.
+
+"You did just now. But the sunshine has already dispelled the
+transient cloud. I am glad that a storm was not portended."
+
+"I felt sober, aunt," Laura said, after a few moments--her face
+again becoming serious.
+
+"So I supposed, from your looks."
+
+"And I feel sober still."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I am really discouraged, aunt."
+
+"About what?"
+
+The maiden's cheek deepened its hue, but she did not reply.
+
+"You and Harry have not fallen out, like a pair of foolish lovers, I
+hope."
+
+"Oh, no!" was the quick and emphatic answer.
+
+"Then what has troubled the quiet waters of your spirit? About what
+are you discouraged?"
+
+"I will tell you," the maiden replied. "It was only about a week
+after my engagement with Harry that I called upon Alice Stacy, and
+found her quite unhappy. She had not been married over a few months.
+I asked what troubled her, and she said, 'I feel as miserable as I
+can be.' 'But what makes you miserable, Alice?' I inquired. 'Because
+William and I have quarrelled--that's the reason,' she said, with
+some levity, tossing her head and compressing her lips, with a kind
+of defiance. I was shocked--so much so, that I could not speak. 'The
+fact is,' she resumed, before I could reply, 'all men are arbitrary
+and unreasonable. They think women inferior to them, and their wives
+as a higher order of slaves. But I am not one to be put under any
+man's feet. William has tried that trick with me, and failed. Of
+course, to be foiled by a woman is no very pleasant thing for one of
+your lords of creation. A tempest in a teapot was the consequence.
+But I did not yield the point in dispute; and, what is more, have no
+idea of doing so. He will have to find out, sooner or later, that I
+am his equal in every way; and the quicker he can be made conscious
+of this, the better for us both. Don't you think so?' I made no
+answer. I was too much surprised and shocked. 'All men,' she
+continued, 'have to be taught this. There never was a husband who
+did not, at first, attempt to lord it over his wife. And there never
+was a woman, whose condition as a wife was at all above that of a
+passive slave, who did not find it necessary to oppose herself at
+first, with unflinching perseverance.'
+
+"To all this, and a great deal more, I could say nothing. It choked
+me up. Since then, I have met her frequently, at home and elsewhere,
+but she has never looked happy. Several times she has said to me, in
+company, when I have taken a seat beside her, and remarked that she
+seemed dull, 'Yes, I am dull; but Mr. Stacy, there, you see, enjoys
+himself. Men always enjoy themselves in company--apart from their
+wives, of course.' I would sometimes oppose to this a sentiment
+palliative of her husband; as, that, in company, a man very
+naturally wished to add his mite to the general joyousness, or
+something of a like nature. But it only excited her, and drew forth
+remarks that shocked my feelings. Up to this day, they do not appear
+to be on any better terms. Then, there is Frances Glenn--married
+only three months, and as fond of carping at her husband for his
+arbitrary, domineering spirit, as is Mrs. Stacy. I could name two or
+three others, who have been married, some a shorter and some a
+longer period, that do not seem to be united by any closer bonds.
+
+"It is the condition of these young friends, aunt, that causes me to
+feel serious. I am to be married in a few weeks. Can it be possible
+that my union with Henry Armour will be no happier, no more perfect
+than theirs? This I cannot believe. And yet, the relation that Alice
+and Frances hold to their husbands, troubles me whenever I think of
+it. Henry, as far as I have been able to understand him, has strong
+points in his character. From a right course of action,--or, from a
+course of action that he thinks right,--no consideration, I am sure,
+would turn him. I, too, have mental characteristics somewhat
+similar. There is, likewise, about me, a leaven of stubbornness. I
+tremble when the thought of opposition between us, upon any subject,
+crosses my mind. I would rather die--so I feel about it--than ever
+have a misunderstanding with my husband."
+
+Laura ceased, and her aunt, who was, she now perceived, much
+agitated, arose and left the room without speaking. The reason of
+this to Laura was altogether unaccountable. Her aunt Cleaveland,
+always so mild, so calm, to be thus strongly disturbed! What could
+it mean? What could there be in her maidenly fears to excite the
+feelings of one so good, and wise, and gentle? An hour afterwards,
+and while she yet sat, sober and perplexed in mind, in the same
+place where Mrs. Cleaveland had left her, a domestic came in and
+said that her aunt wished to see her in her own room. Laura attended
+her immediately. She found her calm and self-possessed, but paler
+than usual. "Sit down beside me, dear," Mrs. Cleaveland said,
+smiling faintly, as her niece came in.
+
+"What you said this morning, Laura," she began, after a few moments,
+"recalled my own early years so vividly, that I could not keep down
+emotions I had deemed long since powerless. The cause of those
+emotions it is now, I clearly see, my duty to reveal--that is, to
+you. For years I have carefully avoided permitting my mind to go
+back to the past, in vain musings over scenes that bring no pleasant
+thoughts, no glad feelings. I have, rather, looked into the future
+with a steady hope, a calm reliance. But, for your sake, I will draw
+aside the veil. May the relation I am now about to give you have the
+effect I desire! Then shall I not suffer in vain. How vividly, at
+this moment, do I remember the joyful feelings that pervaded my
+bosom, when, like you, a maiden, I looked forward to my wedding-day.
+Mr. Cleaveland was a man, in many respects, like Henry Armour.
+Proud, firm, yet gentle and amiable when not opposed;--a man with
+whom I might have been supremely happy;--a man whose faults I might
+have corrected--not by open opposition to them--not by seeming to
+notice them--but by leading him to see them himself. But this course
+I did not pursue. I was proud; I was self-willed; I was unyielding.
+Elements like these can never come into opposition without a victory
+on either side being as disastrous as the defeats. We were married.
+Oh, how sweet was the promise of my wedding-day! Of my husband I was
+very fond. Handsome, educated, and with talents of a high order,
+there was every thing about him to make the heart of a young wife
+proud. Tenderly we loved each other. Like days in Elysium passed the
+first few months of our wedded life. Our thoughts and wishes were
+one. After that, gradually a change appeared to come over my
+husband. He deferred less readily to my wishes. His own will was
+more frequently opposed to mine, and his contentions for victory
+longer and longer continued. This surprised and pained me. But it
+did not occur to me, that my tenaciousness of opinion might seem as
+strange to him as did his to me. It did not occur to me, that there
+would be a propriety in my deferring to him--at least so far as to
+give up opposition. I never for a moment reflected that a proud,
+firm-spirited man, might be driven off from an opposing wife, rather
+than drawn closer and united in tenderer bonds. I only perceived my
+rights as an equal assailed. And, from that point of view, saw his
+conduct as dogmatical and overbearing, whenever he resolutely set
+himself against me, as was far too frequently the case.
+
+"One day,--we had then been married about six months,--he said to
+me, a little seriously, yet smiling as he spoke, 'Jane, did not I
+see you on the street, this morning?' 'You did,' I replied. 'And
+with Mrs. Corbin?' 'Yes.' My answer to this last question was not
+given in a very pleasant tone. The reason was this. Mrs. Corbin, a
+recent acquaintance, was no favourite with my husband; and he had
+more than once mildly suggested that she was not, in his view, a fit
+associate for me. This rather touched my pride. It occurred to me,
+that I ought to be the best judge of my female associates, and that
+for my husband to make any objections was an assumption on his part,
+that, as a wife, I was called upon to resist. I did not, on previous
+occasions, say any thing very decided, contenting myself with
+parrying his objections laughingly. This time, however, I was in a
+less forbearing mood. 'I wish you would not make that woman your
+friend' he said, after I had admitted that he was right in his
+observation. 'And why not, pray?' I asked, looking at him quite
+steadily. 'For reasons before given, Jane,' he replied, mildly, but
+firmly. 'There are reports in circulation touching her character,
+that I fear are'--'They are false!' I interrupted him. 'I know they
+are false!' I spoke with a sudden excitement. My voice trembled, my
+cheek burned, and I was conscious that my eye shot forth no mild
+light. 'They are true--I know they are true!' Mr. Cleaveland said,
+sternly, but apparently unruffled. 'I don't believe it,' I retorted.
+'I know her far better. She is an injured woman.'
+
+"'Jane,' my husband now said, his voice slightly trembling, 'you are
+my wife. As such, your reputation is as dear to me as the apple of
+my eye. Suspicion has been cast upon Mrs. Corbin, and that suspicion
+I have good reason for believing well founded. If you associate with
+her--if you are seen upon the street with her, your fair fame will
+receive a taint. This I cannot permit.'
+
+"There was, to my mind, a threat contained in the last sentence--a
+threat of authoritative intervention. At this my pride took fire.
+
+"'Cannot permit!' I said, drawing myself up. 'What do you mean, Mr.
+Cleveland?'
+
+"The brow of my husband instantly flushed. He was silent for a
+moment or two. Then he said, with forced calmness, yet in a
+resolute, meaning tone--
+
+"'Jane, I do not wish you to keep company with Mrs. Corbin.'
+
+"'I WILL!' was my indignant reply.
+
+"His face grew deadly pale. For a moment his whole frame trembled as
+if some fearful struggle were going on within. Then he quietly
+arose, and, without looking at me, left the room. Oh! how deeply did
+I regret uttering those unhappy words the instant they were spoken!
+But repentance came too late. For about the space of ten minutes,
+pride struggled with affection and duty. At the end of that time the
+latter triumphed, and I hastened after my husband to ask his
+forgiveness for what I said. But he was not in the parlours. He was
+not in the house! I asked a servant if she had seen him, and
+received for reply that he had gone out.
+
+"Anxiously passed the hours until nightfall. The sad twilight, as it
+gathered dimly around, threw a deeper gloom over my heart. My
+husband usually came home before dark. Now he was away beyond his
+accustomed hour. Instead of returning gladly to meet his young wife,
+he was staying away, because that young wife had thrown off the
+attractions of love and presented to him features harsh and
+repulsive. How anxiously I longed to hear the sound of his
+footsteps--to see his face--to hear his voice! The moment of his
+entrance I resolved should be the moment of my humble confession of
+wrong--of my faithful promise never again to set up my will
+determinedly in opposition to his judgment. But minute after minute
+passed after nightfall--hours succeeded minutes--and these rolled on
+until the whole night wore away, and he came not back to me. As the
+gray light of morning stole into my chamber, a terrible fear took
+hold of me, that made my heart grow still in my bosom--the fear that
+he would never return--that I had driven him off from me. Alas! this
+fear was too nigh the truth. The whole of that day passed, and the
+next and the next, without any tidings. No one had seen him since he
+left me. An anxious excitement spread among all his friends. The
+only account I could give of him, was, that he had parted from me in
+good health, and in a sane mind.
+
+"A week rolled by, and still no word came. I was nearly distracted.
+What I suffered, no tongue can tell, no heart conceive. I have often
+wondered that I did not become insane but from this sad condition I
+was saved. Through all, my reason, though often trembling, did not
+once forsake me. It was on the tenth day from that upon which we had
+jarred so heavily as to be driven widely asunder, that a letter came
+to me, post-marked New York, and endorsed 'In haste.' My hands
+trembled so that I could with difficulty break the seal. The
+contents were to the effect that my husband had been lying for
+several days at one of the hotels there, very ill, but now past the
+crisis of his disease, and thought by the physician to be out of
+danger. The writer urged me, from my husband, to come on
+immediately. In eight hours from the time I received that letter, I
+was in New York. Alas! it was too late; the disease had returned
+with double violence, and snapped the feeble thread of life. I never
+saw my husband's living face again."
+
+The self-possession of Mrs. Cleaveland, at this part of her
+narrative, gave way. Covering her face with her hands, she sobbed
+violently, while the tears came trickling through her fingers.
+
+"My dear Laura," she resumed, after the lapse of many minutes,
+looking up as she spoke, with a clear eye, and a sober, but placid
+countenance, "it is for your sake that I have turned my gaze
+resolutely back. May the painful history I have given you make a
+deep impression upon your heart; let it warn you of the sunken rock
+upon which my bark foundered. Avoid carefully, religiously avoid
+setting yourself in opposition to your husband; should he prove
+unreasonable or arbitrary, nothing is to be gained, and every thing
+lost by contention. By gentleness, by forbearance, by even suffering
+wrong at times, you will be able to win him over to a better spirit:
+an opposite course will as assuredly put thorns in your pillow as
+you adopt it. Look at the unhappy condition of the friends you have
+named; their husbands are, in their eyes, exacting, domineering
+tyrants. But this need not be. Let them act truly the woman's part.
+Let them not oppose, but yield, and they will find that their
+present tyrants' will become their lovers. Above all, never, under
+any circumstances, either jestingly or in earnest, say '_I will_,'
+when you are opposed. That declaration is never made without its
+robbing the wife of a portion of her husband's confidence and love;
+its utterance has dimmed the fire upon many a smiling hearth-stone."
+
+Laura could not reply; the relation of her aunt had deeply shocked
+her feelings. But the words she had uttered sank into her heart; and
+when her trial came--when she was tempted to set her will in
+opposition to her husband's, and resolutely to contend for what she
+deemed right, a thought of Mrs. Cleaveland's story would put a seal
+upon her lips. It was well. The character of Henry Armour too nearly
+resembled that of Mr. Cleaveland: he could illy have brooked a
+wife's opposition; but her tenderness, her forbearance, her devoted
+love, bound her to him with cords that drew closer and closer each
+revolving year. She never opposed him further than to express a
+difference of opinion when such a difference existed, and its
+utterance was deemed useful; and she carefully avoided, on all
+occasions, the doing of any thing of which he in the smallest degree
+disapproved. The consequence was, that her opinion was always
+weighed by him carefully, and often deferred to. A mutual confidence
+and a mutual dependence upon each other gradually took the place of
+early reserves, and now they sweetly draw together--now they
+smoothly glide along the stream of life blessed indeed in all their
+marriage relations. Who will say that Laura did not act a wise part?
+Who will say that in sacrificing pride and self-will, she did not
+gain beyond all calculation? No one, surely. She is not her
+husband's slave, but his companion and equal. She has helped to
+reform and remodel his character, and make him less arbitrary, less
+self-willed, less disposed to be tyrannical. In her mild
+forbearance, he has seen a beauty more attractive far than lip or
+cheek, or beaming eye.
+
+Instead of looking upon his wife as below him, Henry Armour feels
+that she is his superior, and as such he tenderly regards and
+lovingly cherishes her. He never thinks of obedience from her, but
+rather studies to conform himself to her most lightly-spoken wish.
+To be thus united, what wife will not for a time sacrifice her
+feelings when her young self-willed husband so far forgets himself
+as to become exacting! The temporary loss will turn out in the
+future to be a great gain.
+
+
+
+
+A MOTHER'S INFLUENCE.
+
+
+"THERE come the children from school," said Aunt Mary, looking from
+the window. "Just see that Clarence! he'll have Henry in the gutter.
+I never saw just such another boy; why can't he come quietly along
+like other children? There! now he must stop to throw stones at the
+pigs. That boy'll give you the heart-ache yet, Anna."
+
+Mrs. Hartley made no reply, but laid aside her work quietly and left
+the room to see that their dinner was ready. In a few minutes the
+street-door was thrown open, and the children came bounding in full
+of life, and noisy as they could be.
+
+"Where is your coat, Clarence?" she asked, in a pleasant tone,
+looking her oldest boy in the face.
+
+"Oh, I forgot!" he replied, cheerfully; and turning quickly, he ran
+down stairs, and lifting his coat from where, in his thoughtlessness,
+he had thrown it upon the floor, hung it up in its proper place, and
+then sprang up the stairs.
+
+"Isn't dinner ready yet?" he said, with fretful impatience, his
+whole manner changing suddenly. "I'm hungry."
+
+"It will be ready in a few minutes, Clarence."
+
+"I want it now. I'm hungry."
+
+"Did you ever hear of the man," said Mrs. Hartley, in a voice that
+showed no disturbance of mind, "who wanted the sun to rise an hour
+before its time?"
+
+"No, mother. Tell me about it, won't you?"
+
+All impatience had vanished from the boy's face.
+
+"There was a man who had to go upon a journey; the stage-coach was
+to call for him at sun-rise. More than an hour before it was time
+for the sun to be up, the man was all ready to go, and for the whole
+of that hour he walked the floor impatiently, grumbling at the sun
+because he did not rise. 'I'm all ready, and I want to be going,' he
+said. 'It's time the sun was up, long ago.' Don't you think he was a
+very foolish man?"
+
+Clarence laughed, and said he thought the man was very foolish
+indeed.
+
+"Do you think he was more foolish than you were just now for
+grumbling because dinner wasn't ready?"
+
+Clarence laughed again, and said he did not know. Just then Hannah,
+the cook, brought in the waiter with the children's dinner upon it.
+Clarence sprang for a chair, and drew it hastily and noisily to the
+table.
+
+"Try and see if you can't do that more orderly, my dear," his mother
+said, in a quiet voice, looking at him, as she spoke, with a steady
+eye.
+
+The boy removed his chair, and then replaced it gently.
+
+"That is much better, my son."
+
+And thus she corrected his disorderly habits, quieted his impatient
+temper, and checked his rudeness, without showing any disturbance.
+This she had to do daily. At almost every meal she found it
+necessary to repress his rude impatience. It was line upon line, and
+precept upon precept. But she never tired, and rarely permitted
+herself to show that she was disturbed, no matter how deeply grieved
+she was at times over the wild and reckless spirit of her boy.
+
+On the next day she was not very well; her head ached badly all the
+morning. Hearing the children in the passage when they came in from
+school at noon, she was, rising from the bed where she had lain
+down, to attend to them and give them their dinners, when Aunt Mary
+said--"Don't get up, Anna, I will see to the children."
+
+It was rarely that Mrs. Hartley let any one do for them what she
+could do herself, for no one else could manage the unhappy temper of
+Clarence; but so violent was the pain in her head, that she let Aunt
+Mary go, and sank back upon the pillow from which she had arisen. A
+good deal of noise and confusion continued to reach her ears, from
+the moment the children came in. At length a loud cry and passionate
+words from Clarence caused her to rise up quickly and go over to the
+dining-room. All was confusion there, and Aunt Mary out of humour
+and scolding prodigiously. Clarence was standing up at the table,
+looking defiance at her, on account of some interference with his
+strong self-will. The moment the boy saw his mother, his countenance
+changed, and a look of confusion took the place of anger.
+
+"Come over to my room, Clarence," she said, in a low voice; there
+was sadness in its tones, that made him feel sorry that he had given
+vent so freely to his ill-temper.
+
+"What was the matter, my son?" Mrs. Hartley asked, as soon as they
+were alone, taking Clarence by the hand and looking steadily at him.
+
+"Aunt Mary wouldn't help me when I asked her."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"She would help Henry first."
+
+"No doubt she had a reason for it. Do you know her reason?"
+
+"She said he was youngest." Clarence pouted out his lips, and spoke
+in a very disagreeable tone.
+
+"Don't you think that was a very good reason?"
+
+"I've as good a right to be helped first as he has."
+
+"Let us see if that is so. You and Marien and Henry came in from
+school, all hungry and anxious for your dinners. Marien is
+oldest--she, one would suppose, from the fact that she is oldest,
+would be better able to feel for her brothers, and be willing to see
+their wants supplied before her own. You are older than Henry, and
+should feel for him in the same way. No doubt this was Aunt Mary's
+reason for helping Henry first. Had she helped Marien?"
+
+"No, ma'am."
+
+"Did Marien complain?"
+
+"No, ma'am."
+
+"No one complained but my unhappy Clarence. Do you know why you
+complained? I can tell you, as I have often told you before; it is
+because you indulge in very selfish feelings. All who do so, make
+themselves miserable. If, instead of wanting Aunt Mary to help you
+first, you had, from a love of your little brother, been willing to
+see him first attended to, you would have enjoyed a real pleasure.
+If you had said--'Aunt Mary, help Harry first,' I am sure Henry
+would have said instantly--' No, Aunt Mary, help brother Clarence
+first.' How pleasant this would have been! how happy would all of us
+have felt at thus seeing two little brothers generously preferring
+one another!"
+
+There was an unusual degree of tenderness, even sadness in the voice
+of his mother, that affected Clarence; but he struggled with his
+feelings. When, however, she resumed, and said--"I have felt quite
+sick all the morning; my head has ached badly--so badly that I have
+had to lie down. I always give you your dinners when you come home,
+and try to make you comfortable. To-day I let Aunt Mary do it,
+because I felt so sick; but I am sorry that I did not get up, sick
+as I was, and do it myself; then I might have prevented this unhappy
+outbreak of my boy's unruly temper, that has made not only my head
+ache ten times as badly as it did, but my heart ache also"--
+
+Clarence burst into tears, and throwing his arms ground his mother's
+neck, wept bitterly.
+
+"I will try and be good, dear mother," he said. "I do try sometimes,
+but it seems that I can't."
+
+"You must always try, my dear son. Now dry up your tears, and go out
+and get your dinner. Or, if you would rather I should go with you, I
+will do so."
+
+"No, dear mother," replied the boy, affectionately, "you are sick;
+you must not go. I will be good."
+
+Clarence kissed his mother again, and then returned quietly to the
+dining-room.
+
+"Naughty boy!" said Aunt Mary, as he entered, looking sternly at
+him.
+
+A bitter retort came instantly to the tongue of Clarence, but he
+checked himself with a strong effort, and took his place at the
+table. Instead of soothing the quick-tempered boy, Aunt Mary chafed
+him by her words and manner during the whole meal, and it was only
+the image of his mother's tearful face, and the remembrance that she
+was sick, that restrained an outbreak of his passionate temper.
+
+When Clarence left the table, he returned to his mother's room, and
+laid his head upon the pillow where her's was resting.
+
+"I love you, mother," he said, affectionately, "you are good. But I
+hate Aunt Mary."
+
+"Oh, no, Clarence; you must not say that you hate Aunt Mary, for
+Aunt Mary is very kind to you. You mustn't hate anybody."
+
+"She isn't kind to me, mother. She calls me a bad boy, and says
+every thing to make me angry when I want to be good."
+
+"Think, my son, if there is not some reason for Aunt Mary calling
+you a bad boy. You know yourself, that you act very naughtily
+sometimes, and provoke Aunt Mary--a great deal."
+
+"But she said I was a naughty boy when I went out just now, and I
+was sorry for what I had done, and wanted to be good."
+
+"Aunt Mary didn't know that you were sorry, I am sure. When she
+called you 'naughty boy,' what did you say?"
+
+"I was going to say 'You're a fool!' but I didn't. I tried hard not
+to let my tongue say the bad words, though it wanted to."
+
+"Why did you try not to say them?"
+
+"Because it would have been wrong, and would have made you feel
+sorry; and I love you." Again the repentant boy kissed her. His eyes
+were full of tears, and so were the eyes of his mother.
+
+While talking over this incident with her husband, Mrs. Hartley
+said--"Were not all these impressions so light, I would feel
+encouraged. The boy has warm and tender feelings, but I fear that
+his passionate temper and selfishness will, like evil weeds,
+completely check their growth."
+
+"The case is bad enough, Anna, but not so bad, I hope, as you fear.
+These good affections are never active in vain. They impress the
+mind with an indelible impression. In after years the remembrance of
+them will revive the states they produced, and give strength to good
+desires and intentions. Amid all his irregularities and wanderings
+from good, in after-life, the thoughts of his mother will restore
+the feelings he had to-day, and draw him back from evil with cords
+of love that cannot be broken. The good now implanted will remain,
+and, like ten just men, save the city. In most instances where men
+abandon themselves finally to evil courses, it will be found that
+the impressions made in childhood were not of the right kind; that
+the mother's influence was not what it should have been. For myself,
+I am sure that a different mother would have made me a different
+man. When a boy, I was too much like Clarence; but the tenderness
+with which my mother always treated me, and the unimpassioned but
+earnest manner in which she reproved and corrected my faults,
+subdued my unruly temper. When I became restless or impatient, she
+always had a book to read to me, or a story to tell, or had some
+device to save me from myself. My father was neither harsh nor
+indulgent towards me; I cherish his memory with respect and love;
+but I have different feelings when I think of my mother. I often
+feel, even now, as if she were near me--as if her cheek were laid to
+mine. My father would place his hand upon my head caressingly, but
+my mother would lay her cheek against mine. I did not expect my
+father to do more--I do not know that I would have loved him had he
+done more; for him it was a natural expression of affection; but no
+act is too tender for a mother. Her kiss upon my cheek, her warm
+embrace, are all felt now; and the older I grow, the more holy seem
+the influences that surrounded me in childhood."
+
+
+
+
+THE POWER OF PATIENCE.
+
+
+I HAVE a very excellent friend, who married some ten years ago, and
+now has her own cares and troubles in a domestic establishment
+consisting of her husband and herself, five children, and two
+servants. Like a large majority of those similarly situated, Mrs.
+Martinet finds her natural stock of patience altogether inadequate
+to the demand therefor; and that there is an extensive demand will
+be at once inferred when I mention that four of her five children
+are boys.
+
+I do not think Mrs. Martinet's family government by any means
+perfect, though she has certainly very much improved it, and gets on
+with far more comfort to herself and all around her than she did.
+For the improvement at which I have hinted, I take some credit to
+myself, though I am by no means certain, that, were I situated as my
+friend is, I should govern my family as well as she governs hers. I
+am aware that a maiden lady, like myself, young or old, it matters
+not to tell the reader which, can look down from the quiet regions
+where she lives, and see how easy it would be for the wife and
+mother to reduce all to order in her turbulent household. But I am
+at the same time conscious of the difficulties that beset the wife
+and mother in the incessant, exhausting, and health-destroying
+nature of her duties, and how her mind, from these causes, must
+naturally lose its clear-seeing qualities when most they are needed,
+and its calm and even temper when its exercise is of most
+consequence. Too little allowance, I am satisfied, is made for the
+mother, who, with a shattered nervous system, and suffering too,
+often, from physical prostration, is ever in the midst of her little
+family of restless spirits, and compelled to administer to their
+thousand wants, to guide, guard, protect, govern, and restrain their
+evil passions, when of all things, repose and quiet of body and
+mind, for even a brief season, would be the greatest blessing she
+could ask.
+
+I have seen a wife and mother, thus situated, betrayed into a hasty
+expression, or lose her self-command so far as to speak with fretful
+impatience to a child who rather needed to be soothed by a calmly
+spoken word; and I have seen her even-minded husband, who knew not
+what it was to feel a pain, or to suffer from nervous prostration,
+reprove that wife with a look that called the tears to her eyes. She
+was wrong, but he was wrong in a greater degree. The over-tried wife
+needed her husband's sustaining patience, and gently spoken counsel,
+not his cold reproof.
+
+Husbands, as far as my observation gives me the ability to judge,
+have far less consideration for, and patience with their wives, than
+they are entitled to receive. If any should know best the wife's
+trials, sufferings, and incessant exhausting duties, it is the
+husband, and he, of all others, should be the last to censure, if,
+from very prostration of body and mind, she be sometimes betrayed
+into hasty words, that generally do more harm among children and
+domestics than total silence in regard to what is wrong. But this is
+a digression.
+
+One day, I called to see Mrs. Martinet, and found her in a very
+disturbed state of mind.
+
+"I am almost worried to death, Kate!" she said, soon after I came
+in.
+
+"You look unhappy," I returned. "What has happened?"
+
+"What is always happening," she replied. "Scarcely a day passes over
+my head that my patience is not tried to the utmost. I must let
+every body in the house do just as he or she likes, or else there is
+a disturbance. I am not allowed to speak out my own mind, without
+some one's being offended."
+
+"It is a great trial, as well as responsibility to have the charge
+of a family," I remarked.
+
+"Indeed, and you may well say that. No one knows what it is but she
+who has the trial. The greatest trouble is with your domestics. As a
+class, they are, with few exceptions, dirty, careless, and impudent.
+I sometimes think it gives them pleasure to interfere with your
+household arrangements and throw all into disorder. This seems
+especially to be the spirit of my present cook. My husband is
+particular about having his meals at the hour, and is never pleased
+when irregularities occur, although he does not often say any thing;
+this I told Hannah, when she first came, and have scolded her about
+being behindhand a dozen times since; and yet we do not have a meal
+at the hour oftener than two or three times a week.
+
+"This morning, Mr. Martinet asked me if I wouldn't be particular in
+seeing that dinner was on the table exactly at two o'clock. As soon
+as he was gone, I went down into the kitchen and said, 'Do, for
+mercy's sake, Hannah, have dinner ready at the hour to-day. Mr.
+Martinet particularly desires it.' Hannah made no answer. It is one
+of her disagreeable habits, when you speak to her. 'Did you hear
+me?' I asked, quite out of patience with her. The creature looked up
+at me with an impudent face and said, pertly, 'I'm not deaf.' 'Then,
+why didn't you answer me when I spoke? It's a very ugly habit that
+you have of not replying when any one addresses you. How is it to be
+known that you hear what is said?' The spirit in which Hannah met my
+request to have dinner ready in time, satisfied me that she would so
+manage as to throw it off beyond the regular hour. I left the
+kitchen feeling, as you may well suppose, exceedingly worried."
+
+Just then the door of the room in which we were sitting was thrown
+open with a bang, and in bounded Harry, Mrs. Martinet's eldest
+boy--a wild young scape-grace of a fellow--and whooping out some
+complaint against his sister. His mother, startled and annoyed by
+the rude interruption, ordered him to leave the room instantly. But
+Harry stood his ground without moving an eyelash.
+
+"Do you hear?" And Mrs. Martinet stamped with her foot, to give
+stronger emphasis to her words.
+
+"Lizzy snatched my top-cord out of my hands, and won't give it to
+me!"
+
+"Go out of this room!"
+
+"Shan't Lizzy give me my top-cord?"
+
+"Go out, I tell you!"
+
+"I want my top-cord."
+
+"Go out!"
+
+My poor friend's face was red, and her voice trembling with passion.
+With each renewed order for the child to leave the room, she stamped
+with her foot upon the floor. Harry, instead of going out as he was
+directed to do, kept advancing nearer and nearer, as he repeated his
+complaint, until he came close up to where we were sitting.
+
+"Didn't I tell you to go out!" exclaimed his mother, losing all
+patience.
+
+As she spoke, she arose hastily, and seizing him by the arm,
+dragged, rather than led him from the room.
+
+"I never saw such a child!" she said, returning after closing the
+door upon Harry. "Nothing does but force. You might talk to him all
+day without moving him an inch, when he gets in one of these moods."
+
+Bang went the door open, and, "I want my top-cord!" followed
+in louder and more passionate tones than before.
+
+"Isn't it beyond all endurance!" cried my friend, springing up and
+rushing across the room.
+
+The passionate child, who had been spoiled by injudicious
+management, got a sound whipping and was shut up in a room by
+himself. After performing this rather unpleasant task, Mrs. Martinet
+returned to the parlour, flushed, excited, and trembling in every
+nerve.
+
+"I expect that boy will kill me yet," she said, as she sank,
+panting, into a chair. "It is surprising how stubborn and
+self-willed he grows. I don't know how to account for it. He never
+has his own way--I never yield an inch to him when he gets in these
+terrible humours. Oh, dear! I feel sometimes like giving up in
+despair."
+
+I did not make a reply, for I could not say any thing that would not
+have been a reproof of her impatient temper. After my friend had
+grown calmer, she renewed her narrative about the dinner.
+
+"As I was saying, when that boy interrupted us, I left the kitchen
+very much worried, and felt worried all the morning. Several times I
+went down to see how things were coming on, but it was plain that
+Hannah did not mean to have dinner at the hour. When it was time to
+put the meat on to roast, the fire was all down in the range. Half
+an hour was lost in renewing it. As I expected, when my husband came
+home for his dinner, at the regular time, the table was not even
+set.
+
+"'Bless me!' he said, 'isn't dinner ready? I told you that I wished
+it at the hour, particularly. I have a business engagement at
+half-past two, that must be met. It is too bad! I am out of all
+patience with these irregularities. I can't wait, of course.'
+
+"And saying this, Mr. Martinet turned upon his heel and left the
+house. As you may suppose, I did not feel very comfortable, nor in a
+very good humour with Hannah. When she made her appearance to set
+the table, which was not for a quarter of an hour, I gave her about
+as good a setting down, I reckon, as she ever had in her life. Of
+course, I was paid back in impudence which I could not stand, and
+therefore gave her notice to quit. If ever a woman was tried beyond
+endurance, I am. My very life is becoming a burden to me. The worst
+part of it is, there is no prospect of a change for the better.
+Things, instead of growing better, grow worse."
+
+"It is not so bad as that, I hope," I could not help remarking.
+"Have you never thought of a remedy for the evils of which you
+complain?"
+
+"A remedy, Kate! What remedy is there?"
+
+Mrs. Martinet looked at me curiously.
+
+"If not a remedy, there is, I am sure, a palliative," I returned,
+feeling doubtful of the effect of what I had it in my mind to
+express.
+
+"What is the remedy or palliative of which you speak. Name it, for
+goodness' sake! Like a drowning man, I will clutch it, if it be but
+a straw."
+
+"The remedy is _patience_." My voice slightly faltered as I spoke.
+
+Instantly the colour deepened on the face of Mrs. Martinet. But our
+close intimacy, and her knowledge of the fact that I was really a
+friend, prevented her from being offended.
+
+"Patience!" she said, after she had a little recovered herself.
+"Patience is no remedy. To endure is not to cure."
+
+"In that, perhaps, you are mistaken," I returned. "The effect of
+patience is to cure domestic evils. A calm exterior and a gentle,
+yet firm voice, will in nine cases in ten, effect more than the most
+passionate outbreak of indignant feelings. I have seen it tried over
+and over again, and I am sure of the effect."
+
+"I should like to have seen the effect of a gentle voice upon my
+Harry, just now."
+
+"Forgive me for saying," I answered to this, "that in my opinion, if
+you had met his passionate outbreak at the wrong he had suffered in
+losing his top-cord, in a different manner from what you did, that
+the effect would have been of a like different character."
+
+My friend's face coloured more deeply, and her lips trembled. But
+she had good sense, and this kept her from being offended at what I
+said. I went on--
+
+"There is no virtue more necessary in the management of a household
+than patience. It accomplishes almost every thing. Yet it is a hard
+virtue to practise, and I am by no means sure that, if I were in
+your place, I would practise it any better than you do. But it is of
+such vital importance to the order, comfort, and well-being of a
+family, to be able patiently and calmly to meet every disturbing and
+disorderly circumstance, that it is worth a struggle to attain the
+state of mind requisite to do so. To meet passion with passion does
+no good, but harm. The mind, when disturbed from any cause, is
+disturbed more deeply when it meets an opposing mind in a similar
+state. This is as true of children as of grown persons, and perhaps
+more so, for their reason is not matured, and therefore there is
+nothing to balance their minds. It is also more true of those who
+have not learned, from reason, to control themselves, as is the case
+with too large a portion of our domestics; who need to be treated
+with almost as much forbearance and consideration as children."
+
+These remarks produced a visible effect upon Mrs. Martinet. She
+became silent and reflective, and continued so, to a great extent,
+during the half-hour that I remained.
+
+Nearly two weeks elapsed before I called upon my friend again. I
+found her, happily, in a calmer state of mind than upon my previous
+visit. We were in the midst of a pleasant conversation, half an hour
+after I had come in, when one of the children, a boy between seven
+and eight years old, came into the room and made some complaint
+against his brother. The little fellow was excited, and broke in
+upon our quiet chitchat with a rude jar that I felt quite sensibly.
+I expected, of course, to hear him ordered from the room instantly.
+That had been my friend's usual proceeding when these interruptions
+occurred; at least it had been so when I happened to be a visitor.
+But instead of this, she said in a low, mild, soothing voice,
+
+"Well, never mind, Willy. You stay in the parlour with us, where
+Harry can't trouble you."
+
+This was just the proposition, above all others, to please the
+child. His face brightened, and he came and nestled up closely to
+his mother, who was sitting on a corner of the sofa. Drawing an arm
+around him, she went on with the remarks she happened to be making
+when the interruption of his entrance occurred. No very long time
+elapsed before the parlour door flew open, and Harry entered,
+asking, as he did so, in a loud voice, for Willy.
+
+"Willy is here. What do you want with him?" said the mother, in a
+quiet, but firm tone.
+
+"I want him to come and play."
+
+"You were not kind to Willy, and he doesn't wish to play with you."
+
+"Come, Willy, and play, and I will be kind," said Harry.
+
+"Will you let me be the master sometimes?" asked the little fellow,
+raising himself up from where he remained seated beside his mother.
+
+"Yes, you shall be master, sometimes."
+
+"Then I'll play," and Willy sprang from the sofa and bounded from
+the room, as happy as he could be.
+
+The mother smiled, and looking into my face, as soon as we were
+alone, said--
+
+"You see, Kate, that I am trying your remedy, patience."
+
+"With most happy results, I am glad to see."
+
+"With better results than I could have believed, certainly.
+Gentleness, consideration, and firmness, I find do a great deal, and
+their exercise leaves my own mind in a good state. There is a power
+in patience that I did not believe it possessed. I can do more by a
+mildly spoken word, than by the most emphatic command uttered in a
+passion. This is the experience of a few weeks. But, alas! Kate, to
+be able to exercise patience--how hard a thing that is! It requires
+constant watchfulness and a constant effort. Every hour I find
+myself betrayed into the utterance of some hasty word, and feel its
+powerlessness compared to those that are most gently spoken."
+
+"Do you get on with your domestics any better than you did?"
+
+"Oh, yes! Far better."
+
+"I suppose you sent Hannah away some time ago?"
+
+"No. I have her yet."
+
+"Indeed!"
+
+"Yes, and she does very well."
+
+"Does she get your meals ready in time?"
+
+"She is punctual to the minute."
+
+"Really she must have changed for the better! And is this, too, the
+result of patience and forbearance on your part?"
+
+"I suppose so. What you said in regard to having patience, at your
+last visit, struck me forcibly, and caused me to feel humbled and
+self-condemned. The more I thought of it, the more satisfied was I
+that you were right. But it was one thing to see the use of
+patience, and another thing to exercise it. To be patient amid the
+turbulence, ill-tempers, and disobedience of children, and the
+irregularities, carelessness and neglect of domestics, seemed a
+thing impossible. I was in this state of doubt as to my ability to
+exercise the virtue so much needed in my household, when Hannah came
+to the door of the room where I was sitting in no very happy mood,
+and notified me of some want in the kitchen in an exceedingly
+provoking way. I was about replying sharply and angrily; but
+suddenly checking myself, I said in a quiet, mild way, 'Very well,
+Hannah. I will see that it is supplied.'
+
+"The girl stood for some moments, looking at me with an expression
+of surprise on her face, and then walked away. This was a victory
+over myself, and I felt, also, a victory over her. Not half an hour
+elapsed, before, on passing near the kitchen, she said to me, in a
+very respectful manner:
+
+"'I forgot to tell you, this morning, that the tea was all out. But
+I can run round to the store and get some in a few minutes.'
+
+"'Do so, if you please, Hannah,' I returned, without evincing the
+slightest feeling of annoyance at her neglect; 'and try, if you can,
+to have tea ready precisely at six o'clock.'
+
+"'I will have it ready, ma'am,' she replied. And it was ready.
+
+"Had I not exercised patience and self-control, the interview would
+have been something after this fashion: about ten minutes before
+tea-time, Hannah would have come to me and said, with provoking
+coolness--
+
+"'The tea's all out.'
+
+"To which I would have replied sharply--
+
+"'Why, in the name of goodness, did not you say so this morning? You
+knew that you had used the last drawing! I declare you are the most
+provoking creature I ever knew. You'll have to go to the store and
+get some.'
+
+"'I'm not fit to be seen in the street,' she would in all
+probability have replied.
+
+"And then I, losing all patience, would have soundly scolded her,
+and gained nothing but a sick-headache, perhaps, for my pains. Tea,
+in all probability, would have been served at about eight o'clock.
+You see the difference."
+
+"And a very material one it is."
+
+"Isn't it? As you well said, there is a power in patience undreamed
+of by those who seek not its exercise. Next morning, when I had any
+occasion to speak to Hannah, I did so with much mildness, and if I
+had occasion to find fault, requested a change rather than
+enunciated a reproof. The girl changed as if by magic. She became
+respectful in her manner toward me, and evinced a constant anxiety
+to do every thing as I wished to have it done. Not once since have
+we had a meal as much as ten minutes later than the appointed time."
+
+I could not but express the happiness I felt at the change, and urge
+my excellent friend to persevere. This she has done, and the whole
+aspect of things in her family has changed.
+
+There are times, however, when, from ill-health, or a return of old
+states, she recedes again into fretfulness; but the reaction upon
+her is so immediate and perceptible, that she is driven in
+self-defence to patience and forbearance, the result of which is
+order and quiet in her family just in the degree that patience and
+forbearance are exercised.
+
+
+
+
+AN OLD MAN'S RECOLLECTIONS.
+
+
+"I AM not a _very_ old man," said a venerable friend to me, one day,
+"yet my head has become whitened and my cheeks furrowed:--and often,
+as I pause and lean upon my staff, at the corners of the streets,
+the present reality gives place to dreams of the past, and I see
+here, instead of the massive pile of brick and marble, the low frame
+dwelling, and there, in place of the lines of tall warehouses,
+humble tenements. If, in my aimless wanderings about the city, I
+turn my steps towards the suburbs, I find that change, too, has been
+there. I miss the woods and fields where once, with the gay
+companions of early years, I spent many a summer hour. Beautiful
+dwellings have sprung up, it seems to me as if by magic, where but
+yesterday I plucked fruit from overladen branches, or flung myself
+to rest among the tall grass or ripening grain.
+
+"But other changes than this have marked the passage of time.
+Changes that cause them to sink into obscurity in comparison.
+Thousands in our goodly city have passed from the cradle to the
+grave, during the years that have been allotted to me; and thousands
+have proved that all the promises of early years were vain. All
+external mutations would attract but little attention, did they not
+recall other and more important changes. Thought and feeling have
+put on forms, as new and strange, but not, alas! so full of happy
+indications. Prosperity has crowned the toil and enterprise of our
+citizens; but how few of the many who were prosperous when I was in
+my prime are among the wealthy now! How few of the families that
+filled the circles of fashion then, have left any of their scattered
+members to grace the glittering circles now! The wheel of fortune
+has ceased not its revolutions for a moment. Hopes that once spread
+their gay leaves to the pleasant airs have been blighted and
+scattered by the chilling winds of adversity.
+
+"Pausing and leaning upon my staff, as I have said, I often muse
+thus, when some object recalls the memory of one and another who
+have finished their course and been gathered to their fathers. In
+every city and village, wherever there is human life, with its evil
+passions and good affections, there are histories to stir the heart
+and unseal the fountains of tears. Truth, it is said, is strange,
+stranger than fiction; and never was there a truer sentiment
+uttered. In all the fictions that I have read, nothing has met my
+eye so strange and heart-stirring as the incidents in real life that
+have transpired in the families of some of our own citizens. Any
+one, of years and observation, in any city, will bear a like
+testimony. The circumstance of their actual occurrence, and the fact
+that the present reality diminishes, from many causes, our surprise
+at events, tend to make us think lightly of what is going on around
+us. And, besides this, we ordinarily see only the surface of
+society. The writer of fiction unveils the mind and heart of those
+he brings into action, and we see all. We perceive their thoughts
+and feel their emotions. But, if we could look into the bosoms of
+those we meet daily, and read there the hopes and fears that excite
+or depress, we should perceive all around us living histories of
+human passion and emotion that would awaken up our most active
+sympathies. All this, however, is hidden from our eyes. And it is
+only, in most instances, when the present becomes the past, that we
+are permitted to lift the veil, and look at the reality beneath."
+
+We were sitting near a window overlooking one of the principal
+streets of our city, and a slight noise without, at this time,
+attracted our attention.
+
+"There she is again. Poor Flora! How my heart aches for you!" my
+companion suddenly ejaculated, in a tone of deep sympathy, after
+gazing into the street for a moment or two.
+
+"Who is it?" I asked.
+
+"Do you see that poor creature, slowly moving along just opposite?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Twenty years ago, there was not a gayer girl in the city; nor one
+more truly beloved by all."
+
+"She?"
+
+"Yes. Nor one of fairer hopes."
+
+"Hope has indeed sadly mocked her!" said I, giving almost
+involuntary utterance to the thought that instantly passed through
+my mind. Just then I caught a glimpse of her face, that was partly
+turned towards us. Though marked by disease and sorrow, it was yet
+no common face. It still bore traces of womanly beauty, that no eye
+could mistake.
+
+"Poor Flora! what a history of disappointed hopes and crushed
+affections is thine! What a lesson for the young, the thoughtless,
+the innocent!" the old man said, as he retired from the window.
+
+"Who is she?" I asked, after a brief pause.
+
+"You have seen that beautiful old mansion that stands in--street,
+just above--?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"It is now used as an extensive boarding-house; but in my younger
+days, it was one of the most princely establishments in the city. It
+then stood alone, and had attached to it beautifully laid-out
+grounds, stocked with the rarest and richest plants, all in the
+highest state of cultivation. No American workman could produce
+furniture good enough for its aristocratic owner. Every thing was
+bought in Paris, and upon the most extensive scale. And truly, the
+internal arrangement of Mr. T--'s dwelling was magnificent, almost
+beyond comparison at the time."
+
+"And was that the daughter of Mr. T--?" I asked, in surprise.
+
+"Yes, that was Flora T--," the old man said, in a voice that had
+in it an expression of sad feeling, evidently conjured up by the
+reminiscence.
+
+"You knew her in her better days?"
+
+"As well as I knew my own sister. She was one of the gentlest of her
+sex. No one could meet her without loving her."
+
+"She married badly?"
+
+"Yes. That tells the whole secret of her present wretched condition.
+Alas! how many a sweet girl have I seen dragged down, by a union
+with some worthless wretch, undeserving the name of a man! There is
+scarcely a wealthy family in our city, into which some such an one
+has not insinuated himself, destroying the peace of all, and
+entailing hopeless misery upon one all unfit to bear her changed
+lot. The case of Flora is an extreme one. Her husband turned out to
+be a drunkard, and her father's family became reduced in
+circumstances, and finally every member of it either passed from
+this world, or sank into a state of indigence, little above that of
+her own. But the worst feature in this history of wretchedness is
+the fact, that Flora, in sinking so low externally, lost that sweet
+spirit of innocence which once gave a tone of so much loveliness to
+her character. Her husband not only debased her condition, but
+corrupted her mind. Oh, what a wreck she has become!"
+
+"How few families there are," said I, after a few moments, "as you
+have justly remarked, the happiness of which has not been destroyed
+by the marriage of a much loved and fondly cherished daughter and
+sister, to one all unworthy of the heart whose best affections had
+been poured out upon him like water."
+
+"The misery arising from this cause," the old man said, "is
+incalculable. Nor does it always show itself in the extreme external
+changes that have marked Flora T--'s sad history. I could take you
+to many houses, fine houses too, and richly arrayed within, where
+hearts are breaking in the iron grasp of a husband's unfeeling hand,
+that contracts with a slow, torturing cruelty, keeping its victim
+lingering day after day, week after week, month after month, and
+year after year, looking and longing for the hour when the deep
+quiet of the grave shall bring peace--sweet peace."
+
+      *      *      *      *      *
+
+"As I thus look back through a period of some twenty, thirty, and
+forty years," continued the old man, "noting the changes that have
+taken place, and counting over the hopes that have been given like
+chaff to the winds, I feel sad. And yet, amid all this change and
+disappointment, there is much to stir the heart with feelings of
+pleasure. A single instance I will relate:
+
+"A very intimate friend, a merchant, had three daughters, to whom he
+gave an education the best that could be obtained. When the eldest
+was but twenty, and the youngest fourteen, Mr. W-- failed in
+business. Every thing passed from his hands, and he was left
+entirely penniless. Well advanced in years, with his current of
+thoughts, from long habit, going steadily in one way, this shock
+almost entirely prostrated him. He could not find courage to explain
+to his daughters his condition, and the change that awaited them.
+But they loved their father too well not to perceive that something
+was wrong. Suspecting the true cause, the eldest, unknown to him,
+waited upon one of his clerks at his residence, and received from
+him a full statement of her father's affairs. She begged that
+nothing might be concealed; and so obtained all the information that
+the clerk could give, from which she saw plainly that the family
+would be entirely broken up, and worse than all, perhaps scattered,
+the children from their father.
+
+"On returning home, she took her younger sisters, and fully
+explained to them the gloomy prospect in view. Then she explained to
+them her plan, by which the force of the storm might be broken. In
+it they all gladly acquiesced. This plan, they proceeded, unknown to
+their father, to put into execution.
+
+"It was about one week after, that the old man came home so much
+troubled in mind that he was compelled to leave the tea-table, his
+food untasted. As he arose, his children arose also, and followed
+him into the parlours.
+
+"'Dear father!' said the eldest, coming up to his side, and drawing
+her arm around his neck--'do not be troubled. We know it all, and
+are prepared for the worst.'
+
+"'Know what, my child?' he asked in surprise.
+
+"'Know that our condition is changed. And know more--that we are
+prepared to meet that change with brave, true hearts.'
+
+"The tears came into the daughter's eyes as she said this--not tears
+for her changed prospect--but tears for her father.
+
+"'And we are all prepared to meet it,' broke in the other two,
+gathering around the old man.
+
+"'God bless you, my children!' Mr. W-- murmured, with a voice
+choked with emotion. 'But, you know not how low you have fallen. I
+am a beggar!'
+
+"'Not quite,' was the now smiling reply of his eldest child. 'We
+learned it all--and at once determined that we would do our part.
+For two weeks, we have been out among our friends, and freely
+related our plans and the reason for adopting them. The result is,
+we obtained forty scholars to a school we have determined to open,
+for teaching music, French, drawing, &c. You are not a beggar, dear
+father! And never shall be, while you have three daughters to love
+you!'
+
+"The old man's feelings gave way, and he wept like a child. He could
+not object to the proposition of his children. The school was at
+once opened, and is still conducted by the two youngest. It proved a
+means of ample support to the family. To some men, the fact that
+their children had been compelled to resort to daily labour, in any
+calling, for a support, would have been deeply humiliating. Not so
+to Mr. W--. That evidence of his daughters' love to him
+compensated for all the changes which circumstances, uncontrolled by
+himself, had effected."
+
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Home Scenes, and Home Influence, by T. S. Arthur
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOME SCENES, AND HOME INFLUENCE ***
+
+***** This file should be named 4629.txt or 4629.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/4/6/2/4629/
+
+Produced by Charles Aldarondo.  HTML version by Al Haines.
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+https://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+https://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at https://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit https://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including including checks, online payments and credit card
+donations.  To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     https://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.