made them sweet, gentle, natural little girls, whom it
is a delight to know. But "what can she do?" The question is by no means
one which can be readily answered. It is very easy for off-hand severity,
sweeping condemnation, to say, "Do! Why, nothing is plainer. Keep her
children away from such places. Never let them go to any parties which
will last later than nine o'clock." This is the same thing as saying,
"Never let them go to parties at all." There are no parties which break up
at nine o'clock; that is, there are not in our cities. We hope there are
such parties still in country towns and villages,--such parties as we
remember to this day with a vividness which no social enjoyments since
then have dimmed; Saturday-afternoon parties,--_matinees_ they would have
been called if the village people had known enough; parties which began at
three in the afternoon and ended in the early dusk, while little ones
could see their way home; parties at which there was no "German," only the
simplest of dancing, if any, and much more of blind-man's-buff; parties at
which "mottoes" in sugar horns were the luxurious novelty, caraway cookies
the staple, and lemonade the only drink besides pure water. Fancy offering
to the creature called child in cities to-day, lemonade and a caraway
cooky and a few pink sugar horns and some walnuts and raisins to carry
home in its pocket! One blushes at thought of the scornful contempt with
which such simples would be received,--we mean rejected!

From the party whose invitation we have quoted above the little girls came
home at midnight, radiant, flushed, joyous, looking in their floating
white muslin dresses like fairies, their hands loaded with bouquets of
hot-house flowers and dainty little "favors" from the German. At eleven
they had had for supper champagne and chicken salad, and all the other
unwholesome abominations which are set out and eaten in American evening
entertainments.

Next morning there were no languid eyes, pale cheeks. Each little face was
eager, bright, rosy, though the excited brain had had only five or six
hours of sleep.

"If they only would feel tired the next day, that would be something of an
argument to bring up with them," said the poor mother. "But they always
declare that they feel better than ever."

And so they do. But the "better" is only a deceitful sham, kept up by
excited and overwrought nerves,--the same thing that we see over and over
and over again in all