“I quite agree with you about home duties, my dear; but, though many things have changed since my day, home duties must have changed most of all, if they now include chattering till midnight, and taking a two hours’ walk in the morning, on days when you are likely to get three hours’ tennis in the afternoon, and being obliged to play in the last set, so that you cannot even go and dress a quarter of an hour too soon!  It seems to me that you might get these home duties done by eleven o’clock, and then get an hour, or an hour and a half, for steady reading, or, if not so much as that, still visitors do not come directly after luncheon:  in fact, I noticed that you got through two volumes of that new novel before any one came.  Now, that time would have done equally well for history, and even when the boys are at home, their suspicions would not be much aroused if you went to wash your hands for luncheon a quarter of an hour too soon, and the same in the evening before dinner.”

“Yes, Aunt Rachel, it all seems very easy when I talk to you, and I feel now as if I should carry out all you say, but I know a hundred little things will come to make it very hard.  I wish it were easier to carry out one’s good intentions.”

“I do not wish it for you, my dear; you will be worth ten times more if you have to exert strength of character, than if everything is done for you; we ought to feel a little insulted if Fortune lets us live on too easy terms, though I cannot say, after all, that you have very hard ones.  There now!  I have given you quite enough advice to start several girls in life.  I will only add this:  do not get flurried over your work, or insist on doing it when time and strength will not permit; and, on the other hand, do not be self-indulgent!”

    “Like as a star
    That maketh not haste,
    That taketh not rest,
    Be each one pursuing
    His God-given hest.”

[Footnote 2:  See “Record of a Year’s Reading.” 6_d_.  Mowbray.]

“Get up, M. le Comte!”

You have all been considering what qualities are most necessary in family life and what qualities are most to be deprecated—­you have, in short, been considering Dr. Johnson’s question as to what makes “a clubbable person.”  I find, on comparing your suggestions, that there are thirty-eight things to avoid in home life (which suggests complexity); however, each of you was to confine her attention to three virtues and three failings, so in giving you my own likes and dislikes, I will not dwell on more than three.

I will not take manifest faults like irritability or selfishness—­we all strive against those, but I would suggest turns of mind that are often not realized as faults:—­

I.—­The Benevolent Despot who takes infinite trouble for your help or pleasure, but insists on your enjoying yourself in her way. (The young very often do this to the old or to the invalid, quite forgetting that one’s own way loses none of its charm, even in age or illness!)