d--at all events, by brothers and sisters and friends. It is
different with a father or mother: they are only lent to us for a part of
our lives, and no memory of sensible, useful work will be to us the same
pleasure in after years as the thought of the time that passed more
pleasantly for a mother because we spent it in idle (!) talk, or the
knowledge that a father had enjoyed the feeling that we were always at
hand if he wanted us. A strong-minded woman might consider matters
differently, and feel that a language learnt, or a district visited, was
of more value, but we shall not be able to reason so when we see life in
the new light which death throws upon it; the little restrictions of home
life will then assume a very different aspect.

Unless you are driven with an unusually loose rein, you will probably be
irked by having to be punctual, and to account for your letters and for
your goings and comings; but if you ever feel inclined to resent it, just
think what it will be when you are left free--free to be late because
there is no one to wait dinner for you, free to come and go as you will
because there is no one who cares whether you are tired or not; some of
these days you will give anything to be once more so "fettered."

Higher education often makes girls feel it waste of time to write notes
for their mothers, and to settle the drawing-room flowers: they "must go
and read." Now, what mental result, what benefit to the world, will result
from an ordinary woman's reading, which can, in any way, be comparable to
the value of a woman who diffuses a home-atmosphere, and is always "at
leisure from herself"? You know that I care very much for your
reading--you will have plenty to do if you read all the books I have
begged you to study--but if it gave your mother pleasure for you to be at
the stupidest garden-party, I should think you were wasting your time
terribly if you spent it over a book instead. Some people think ordinary
society, and small talk, beneath them:--well! do not let the talk be
smaller than you can help, but remember Goulburn's warning, "Despise not
little crosses, for they have been to many a saved soul an excellent
discipline of humility."

But to come at last to Solomon's ideal--what is our first impression of
her? Surely it is _strength_, and we probably feel her strong-minded, and
rather a "managing woman"--and, as a rule, these are not loved. I feel
that she wants some sorrow to humanize her--