anecdote was just a trifle doubtful; granted; but
what does the wife take by her remonstrance? Most probably a quarrel;
possibly a good-natured _peccavi_ for the sake of being let off the
continuance of the sermon; perhaps a yawn; most certainly not reform. If
the man is a man of free speech and broad humor by nature and liking, he
will remain so to the end; and what the censorship of society leaves
untouched, the interference of a wife will not control.

Children come in for an enormous share of interference, which is not
direction, not discipline, but simple interference for its own sake.
There are mothers who meddle with every expression of individuality in
their young people, quite irrespective of moral tendency, or whether the
occasion is trivial or important. In the fancies, the pleasures, the
minor details of dress in their children, there is always that intruding
maternal finger upsetting the arrangements of the poor little pie as
vigorously as if thrones and altars depended on the result. Not a game
of croquet can be begun, nor a blue ribbon worn instead of a pink one,
without maternal interference; so that the bloom is rubbed off every
enjoyment, and life becomes reduced to a kind of goose-step, with mamma
for the drill-sergeant prescribing the inches to be marked. Sisters,
too, do a great deal of this kind of thing among each other; as all
those who are intimate where there are large families of unmarried girls
must have seen. The nudges, the warning looks, the deprecating "Amies!"
and "Oh Lucies!" and "Hush Roses!" by which some seek to act as
household police over the others, are patent to all who use their
senses.

In some houses the younger sisters seem to have been born chiefly as
training grounds for the elders, whereon they may exercise their powers
of interference; and a hard time they have of it. If Emma goes to her
embroidery, Ellen tells her she ought to practice her singing; if Jane
is reading, Mary recommends sewing as a more profitable use of precious
time; if Amy is at her easel, Ada wants to turn her round to the piano.
It is quite the exception where four or five sisters leave each other
free to do as each likes, and do not take to drilling and interference
as part of the daily programme. Something of the reluctance to domestic
service so painfully apparent among the better class of working women is
due to this spirit of interference with women. The lady who wrote about
the caps and gowns o