should not differ with me, but accept my views as if they were his own."

I am sure the majority will see that should Philip do this he would degenerate into an echo of his wife, and be a colourless, uninteresting and, on the whole, a rather poor specimen of manhood. Neither husband nor wife should exact this concert of agreement, nor should people residing under the same roof be always of the same mind. Singularly one meets the type of person not infrequently who is exasperated and annoyed if her relatives and friends are not willing to think and speak as she does. In social intercourse everywhere there must be freedom, or else there will be tyranny and the sensation of a chain.

Courtesy in places of public amusement and in public conveyances marks the conduct of the lady or the gentleman. Certain unformulated laws govern the well bred as they pass one another on the journey of life. Loud talking and the mention of names in public are under the ban, and are not to be indulged in, however great the temptation. Why should we not exclude from our conversation comments on and criticisms of our friends? A mother who has brought up four daughters successfully, so that their sweet and gracious womanhood is a delight in the ever-widening circles of

society into which they go, was asked what had been her secret. "I tried," she replied, "never to coerce individuality, and never to insist that my girls should adopt my opinions unless they agreed with them. But I made it an invariable rule that our table talk should never be about friends and neighbours."

There are times and seasons when it is extremely out of taste to carry on private conversation, as before church begins, or during a sermon, or at a concert or the opera, or anywhere or at any time when conversation may interrupt the devotion or the enjoyment of others.

The wearing of a large hat that obscures the vision of those behind it is a violation of good manners on the road, and one's sense of propriety should lead her either to remove it or leave it at home. The wearing of long trailing dresses in the street, where they must be stepped upon or impede the progress of pedestrians, and where they must gather and hold malignant germs lying perdu in dirt and filth, is another distinct infringement of good manners. A lady, no matter what her preference for the grace of a trailing skirt indoors, wears a short skirt on the street.

In times of illness the mother whose little ones have mumps, whooping cough, or chicken pox

O MANNERS ON THE ROAD

147

recautions that the malady may not children next door. In the graver diphtheria and scarlet fever she obeys, injunctions of the Board of Health, and In maintaining the home quarantine. bound in one bundle. The interests of old are intertwined with the interests of en if we live in the middle of a prairie, single neighbour in sight, there would lines of communication converging at tone, and running out thence to the lobe. For this reason let no one dare hly or to forget the rule of loving the "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as che condensation of good manners on tread.

the attribute that distinguishes some makes them attractive and magen it may be defined by the word This quality is rarer than it should be ng and eager American life. We have isure to be deferential. The "step Le conductor is forever urging us on. ng in wild haste lest we shall miss a in. We jostle the feeble and have no for the slower pace of the old or the oddling infancy. To cultivate repose

should be the effort of tens of thousands in the front of whose days is the temptation to be hurried and worried.

Deference to those older than ourselves, superior in station by virtue of official responsibility, or superior in knowledge by virtue of attainments and experience, is a most becoming grace. It would lead us to be tactful. We would not force attentions upon our seniors if we observed that they were not agreeable. We would never by accident or deliberation wound any one.

The little sharp vexations,

The briars that catch and fret -
Why not take them all to the Helper
Who never failed us yet?

Tell Him about the heartache,

And tell Him the longings, too,

Tell Him the baffled purpose,

When we scarce know what to do.

Then leaving all our weakness

With the One divinely strong,
Forget that we bore the burden
And carry away the song.

HE mother's temper is the chief
factor in the joy of the household,
the chief bulwark against depres-
sion, the chief agent in bringing

good cheer. Or it may be the exact opposite. A mother who has an uncertain temper, who is difficult and hard to please, who