long line of misunderstood girls, are many whose interests and
enthusiasms are altogether outside their immediate environment. There
are girls at college and sometimes at boarding-school who have seen a
larger world and have come to love the real things of life. They find it
very hard to waste the days in superficialities. They long to have life
mean more than a round of social events, and the family and friends
misunderstand. Some girls of this sort have solved the problem by
gaining consent to plan their own days. Some have never been able to
gain that consent and have gone on for years in unhappiness. Others have
learned to inject into the seemingly superficial some real things and
have found an outlet for the best that is in them through work for those
in need. One must feel real sympathy for the girl who, striving to be
her best, to live above the round of pettiness and selfish pleasure, is
met with disapproval and misunderstanding.

Many a girl is misunderstood by the one person in the world who ought to
understand her best--her mother. Perhaps more bitter tears are shed by
girls because their mothers do not understand than for any other reason.
The misunderstanding oftentimes is the result of temperament. It is
exceedingly hard for two people of diametrically opposite temperaments
to live in close association without clashes. One of the most pitiful
things in home life today is seen where mother and daughter have
opposite interests and sympathies and lack self-control. The constant
criticism and judging of one another, the quick-tempered commands and
demands on the part of one and the sullen yielding on the part of the
other make one heart-sick.

I am reading over a letter from a girl who says, "I honestly love my
mother. I am proud of the things she can do and I admire her beauty.... I
am twenty-two years old, very ordinary looking and not a social success.
I am a constant disappointment to mother. Our opinions about everything
differ. We cannot agree upon the most trivial things. When father was
living he laughed at us and his genial spirit made things easier but the
last two years have been dreadful. What can we do? Mother does not need
me. When I am away on a visit everything goes smoothly at home and her
letters to me are affectionate. I love them and have kept them to read
when it does not seem as if she _could_ care for me. My uncle has asked
me to come to their home in D---- to be a companion for his
se