hat, while we are obliged to look on and see our dearest friends guilty
of it, we find it next to impossible to make them understand what we mean
when we make outcry over some of its glaring instances.

You, my dearest of friends,--or, rather, you who would be, but for this
one point of hopeless contention between us,--do you remember a certain
warm morning, last August, of which I told you then you had not heard the
last? Here it is again: perhaps in print I can make it look blacker to you
than I could then; part of it I saw, part of it you unwillingly confessed
to me, and part of it little Blue Eyes told me herself.

It was one of those ineffable mornings, when a thrill of delight and
expectancy fills the air; one felt that every appointment of the day must
be unlike those of other days,--must be festive, must help on the "white
day" for which all things looked ready. I remember how like the morning
itself you looked as you stood in the doorway, in a fresh white muslin
dress, with lavender ribbons. I said, "Oh, extravagance! For breakfast!"

"I know," you said; "but the day was so enchanting, I could not make up my
mind to wear any thing that had been worn before." Here an uproar from the
nursery broke out, and we both ran to the spot. There stood little Blue
Eyes, in a storm of temper, with one small foot on a crumpled mass of pink
cambric on the floor; and nurse, who was also very red and angry,
explained that Miss would not have on her pink frock because it was not
quite clean. "It is all dirty, mamma, and I don't want to put it on!
You've got on a nice white dress: why can't I?"

You are in the main a kind mother, and you do not like to give little Blue
Eyes pain; so you knelt down beside her, and told her that she must be a
good girl, and have on the gown Mary had said, but that she should have on
a pretty white apron, which would hide the spots. And Blue Eyes, being
only six years old, and of a loving, generous nature, dried her tears,
accepted the very questionable expedient, tried to forget the spots, and
in a few moments came out on the piazza, chirping like a little bird. By
this time the rare quality of the morning had stolen like wine into our
brains, and you exclaimed, "We will have breakfast out here, under the
vines! How George will like it!" And in another instant you were flitting
back and forth, helping the rather ungracious Bridget move out the
breakfast-table, with its tempting array.

"Oh, mamm