and certainly more quiet
than her daughter. I studied the daughter with interest after knowing
"Mother" better, and her habitual strain of voice and manner were
pathetic. By making a care of her mother instead of a companion, she
was not only guilty of disrespect to a soul which, however weak it may
have been in allowing itself to be directed in all minor matters, had
its own firm principles which were not overridden nor even disturbed by
the daughter's dominance. If the daughter had only dropped her strain
of care and her habit of "bossing" she would have found a true
companion in her mother, and would have been a healthier and happier
woman herself.

In pleasant contrast to this is the story of a family which had an old
father who had lost his mind entirely, and had grown decrepit and
childish in the extreme. The sons and daughters tended him like a baby
and loved him with gentle, tender respect. There was no embarrassment
for his loss of mind, no thought of being distressed or pained by it,
and because his children took their father's state so quietly and
without shame, every guest who came took it in the same way, and there
was no thought of keeping the father out of sight. He sat in the
living-room in his comfortable chair, and always one child or another
was sitting right beside him with a smiling face. Instead of being a
trying member of the family, as happens in so many cases, this old
father seemed to bring content and rest to his children through their
loving care for him.

Very often--I might almost say always--the trying member of the family
is trying only because we make her so by our attitude toward her, let
her be grandmother, mother, or maiden aunt. Even the proverbial
mother-in-law grows less difficult as our attitude toward her is
relieved of the strain of detesting everything she does, and expecting
to detest everything that she is going to do. With every trying friend
we have, if we yield to him in all minor matters we find the settling
of essential questions wonderfully less difficult.

A son had a temper and the girl he married had a temper. The mother
loved her son with the selfish love with which so many mothers burden
their children, and thought that he alone of all men had a right to
lose his temper. Consequently she excused her son and blamed her
daughter-in-law. If there were a mild cyclone roused between the two
married people the son would turn to his mother to hear what a martyr
he wa