irs for the scissors rather than ask
anyone to bring them down for her, and then cherish a hurt feeling for
the next hour because nobody noticed that she was needing scissors.
She expected all her family, and the maids especially, to be mind
readers, and because they were not she was bitterly grieved. There is
not much hope for people when they make a virtue of their sins.

She often told the story of what happened when her Tommy was two days
old. She told it to illustrate her independence of character, but most
people thought it showed something quite different. Mr. M. was
displeased with his dinner on this particular day, and, in his
blundering man's way, complained to his wife about the cooking and left
the house without finishing his meal. Mrs. M. forthwith decided that
she would wear the martyr's crown, again and some more! She got up and
cooked the next meal, in spite of the wild protests of the frightened
maid and nurse, who foresaw disaster. Mrs. M. took violently ill as a
result of her exertions just as she hoped she would, and now, after a
lapse of twenty years, proudly tells that her subsequent illness lasted
six weeks and cost six hundred dollars, and she is proud of it!

A wiser woman would have handled the situation with tact. When Mr. M.
came storming upstairs, waving his table-napkin and feeling much
abused, she would have calmed him down by telling him not to wake the
baby, thereby directing his attention to the small pink traveler who
had so recently joined the company. She would have explained to him
that even if his dinner had not been quite satisfactory, he was lucky
to get anything in troublous times like these; she would have told him
that if, having to eat poor meals was all the discomfiture that came
his way, he was getting off light and easy. She might even go so far
as to remind him that the one who asks the guests must always pay the
piper.

There need not have been any heartburnings or regrets or perturbation
of spirit. Mr. M. would have felt ashamed of his outbreak and
apologized to her and to the untroubled Tommy, and gone downstairs, and
eaten his stewed prunes with an humble and thankful heart.

This love of martyrdom is deeply ingrained in the heart of womankind,
and comes from long bitter years of repression and tyranny. An old
handbook on etiquette earnestly enjoins all young ladies who desire to
be pleasing in the eyes of men to "avoid a light rollicking manner, and
to