that duty as long as possible. She also has
several head-rests and foot-rests, in which the embroidery is exquisite
in itself, but which are so ill-contrived that they afford no rest to
either head or foot. "They are worth having, though," she says,
"because of their beauty, just as a picture is worth having though you
cannot use it." "Yes," replies her husband, "they are worth having, but
not worth having in the way. I do not want even the Sistine Madonna
propped up in my easy-chair." Most of her friends are learning to paint,
and many of them have chosen to give her at Christmas specimens of their
progress mounted on pasteboard easels. These cover the tables and
mantels and brackets of her sitting-room. "Ah!" she says softly, under
her breath, "if they had only thought to paint book-marks instead One
can never have enough book-marks. It would be delightful to have one in
every book in the library, and the more beautiful the better, while the
ugly ones, which perhaps come from our dearest friends, would be blessed
for their usefulness besides being unobtrusive."

Sweet temper is certainly essential to a happy home; but if my friend
were not too sweet tempered to hide these offerings from constant sight,
her sitting-room would not be so exasperating a place. There is no room
for a work-basket or a book on the tables. One is continually upsetting
some frail structure, or tumbling over some well-meant aesthetic
convenience.

Christmas presents are worse than any others. Even a hideous and useless
gift offered at any other season may be acceptable, and we need not
grudge it room, because being spontaneous, it represents love. But even
the most genuine Christmas presents are becoming subject to the
suspicion that they are given from a sense of duty, because gifts at
that season have become a habit. I have no reason to suppose that any of
my numerous kind friends grudge the Christmas presents they so
generously give me; but I often find myself wondering how many of them
would think of giving me anything as often as once a year if there were
no special date to recall the custom to their minds.

Gifts would be far more likely to be spontaneous if they were never
given regularly; if, for instance, we avoided giving anything next
Christmas to anybody whom we had remembered this year--excepting always
to little children, to servants, and to the poor--the three classes to
whom we never venture to give _bric-a-brac_, knowing wel