ils to see that his little boys'
sailor-suits and knickerbockers are in good repair, that their boot-lace
ends do not fly out from their ankles at every step, that their hair is
not like a hearth-brush, that they do not come down to dinner every day
with dirty hands?

To every true man, the cares of fatherhood and home are sacred and
all-sufficing. He realises, as he looks around at his little ones, that
they are his crown and recompense.

John often finds that _his_ crown-and-recompense gives him a racking
headache by war-whoops and stampedes of infinite variety, and there are
moments when he wonders in dismay if he is really a true man! He has had
the privilege of rearing and training five small crowns and recompenses,
and he feels that he could face the future if further privilege, of this
sort, were denied him. Not but that he is devoted to his family. Nobody
who understands the sacrifices he has made for them could doubt that.
Only, he feels that those parts of his nature which are said to
distinguish the human from the animal kingdom, are getting rather
effaced.

He remembers the days before his marriage, when he was so bold, in his
ignorant youth, as to cherish a passion for scientific research. He even
went so far as to make a chemical laboratory of the family box-room,
till attention was drawn to the circumstance by a series of terrific
explosions, which shaved off his eyebrows, blackened his scientific
countenance, and caused him to be turned out, neck and crop, with his
crucibles, and a sermon on the duty that lay nearest him,--which
resolved itself into that of paying innumerable afternoon calls with his
father and brothers, on acquaintances selected--as he declared in his
haste--for their phenomenal stupidity. His father pointed out how
selfish it was for a young fellow to indulge his own little fads and
fancies, when he might make himself useful in a nice manly way, at home.

When, a year later, the scapegrace Josephine, who had caused infinite
trouble and expense to all belonging to her, showed a languid interest
in chemistry, a spare room was at once fitted up for her, and an
extraordinary wealth of crucibles provided by her delighted parents; and
when explosions and smells pervaded the house, her father, with a proud
smile, would exclaim: "What genius and enthusiasm that dear girl does
display!" Josephine afterwards became a distinguished professor, with an
awestruck family, and a husband who made i