An ounce of mother is worth more than a pound of clergy.

--_Spanish Proverb._

1412

A MOTHER'S EXAMPLE.

It was a judicious resolution of a father, as well as a most pleasing
compliment to his wife, when, on being asked by a friend what he
intended to do with his girls, he replied: "I intend to apprentice them
to their mother, that they may learn the art of improving time, and be
fitted to become wives, mothers, heads of families, and useful members
of society." Equally just, but very different, was the remark of an
unhappy husband--his wife was vain and thoughtless--"It is hard to say,
but if my girls are to have a chance of growing up good for anything,
they must be sent out of the way of their mother's example."

1413

A MOTHER'S SORROWS.

My son! my son! I cannot speak the rest--
Ye who have sons can only know my fondness!
Ye who have lost them, or who fear to lose,
Can only know my pangs! none else can guess them;
A mother's sorrows cannot be conceived
But by a mother!

1414

Pomponius Atticus, who pronounced a funeral oration on the death of his
mother, protested that though he had resided with her sixty-seven years,
he was never once reconciled to her; "because," said he, "there never
happened the least discord between us, and consequently there was no
need of reconciliation."

1415

THE MOTHER'S HOPE.

Is there, when the winds are singing
In the happy summer time--
When the raptured air is ringing
With earth's music heavenward springing,
Forest chirp and village chime--
Is there, of the sounds that float
Unsighingly, a single note
Half so sweet, and clear, and wild,
As the laughter of a child?

--_Laman Blanchard._

1416

_A True Estimate of a Mother._--To a child, there is no velvet so soft
as a mother's lap, no rose so lovely as her smile, no path so flowery as
that imprinted with her footsteps.

1417

TURF FROM MY MOTHER'S GRAVE.

The following simple, beautiful lines contain an unadorned statement of
a fact in the experience of a friend, who is fond of wandering in the
Scotch highland glens:

As I came wandering down Glen Spean,
Where the braes are green and grassy,
With my light step I overtook
A weary-footed lassie.

She had one bundle on her back,
Another