o well together.' To our credit be it said, that
we have never enlightened him as to the true state of affairs."

And for the sake of the man they both loved, these women refrained
from outward evidence of the intense dislike each felt for the other.

The trouble begins very far back. When the boy is laughingly warned
against "the girl with a family," and the girl is reminded that this
or that jolly fellow "has a dragon of a mother," the evil seed is
sown. From that time until the pair are forever united at the altar,
it grows, and with marriage it begins to bring forth the unpeaceable
fruits of endless dissensions. I sometimes wonder if the new life
could be begun with a predisposition towards amity, what the result
would be.

There is fault on both sides from the beginning. It is an accepted
proverb that no house is large enough to hold two families, and
certainly no family is large enough to contain two factions. As soon
as the son of the household marries, an antagonistic element is
introduced. Mother and sisters immediately bring to bear upon the new
bride opera-glasses of criticism,--viewing faults through the small
end, and virtues through the large.

It would be strange indeed if two women who have never met until the
younger one was of a marriageable age, should have the same methods of
housekeeping, etc. But the mother-in-law is inclined to believe that
John's wife should do things her way, and that any other way is
slovenly, new-fangled, or ridiculous. The son's wife--possessing her
share of individuality--resents the interference, and shows that
resentment. Too often, alas! both make the dreary mistake of retailing
their sorrows to John, and then the breach becomes too wide ever to be
bridged over. Unless John is an exceptionally independent man he will
attempt in his clumsy way to bring both women to the same way of
thinking, and the result would be ludicrous were it not also pitiful.
The chances are nine hundred and ninety-nine to one thousand that he
will succeed in making his mother feel that he is unduly influenced
by his silly wife, while said wife thinks indignantly that John is,
and always will be, "under his mother's thumb."

I firmly believe that Mary is often to blame for John's dislike for
her family. When she marries, she revels in the new and delightful
sensation of having some one to "take her part," and sympathize with
her in all her petty annoyances and big troubles. Her father, mother,