with no wish to rise out of their moral slough, these must be to us as moral lepers, to be gilded by no wealth, to be cloaked by no insignia of noble birth, or we stand betrayed as hypocrites and charlatans in our own cause.  If our position in society is such as obliges us to receive such men, we all know the moral uses of ice, and under the guise of the most frigid politeness we can make them feel their absolute exclusion from the inner circle of our friends and intimates.  There need be no discussion between you and your son—­just the hint:  “Oh, mother, I would not ask that fellow if I were you,” and you will know what is meant.

Much may also be done by keeping up the general high tone of the home.  One mother of eight sons, who all turned out men of high, pure life, if ever they used in her presence such expressions as “a well-groomed woman,” or commended their last partner at a ball as “a pretty little filly,” would instantly interrupt them and ask incisively, “Are you talking of a horse or a woman?  If you are talking of a woman, you will be pleased to remember that you are speaking in the presence of your mother and your sisters.”  And if any scandal about a woman was mooted, the conversation was at once quietly turned into another and more profitable channel.

A word of homely advice from you to your sons with regard to our streets at night:  never to loiter, but to trudge on quickly, when they would be rarely molested, may be advisable and useful.

As to absolute watchfulness with regard to the young maid-servants in your house, this is so obvious a point that it scarcely needs mentioning; though at the same time I have known the most culpably careless arrangements made when the family are away for their summer holidays, young maid-servants being left alone in the house while the young men are still going backwards and forwards to their business; or the whole family going out and no older woman being left in charge of the young domestics.  What can one expect but that, having sown moral carelessness, we shall reap corruption?

But even with no such culpable neglect of our responsibilities, I do wish we would cultivate more human relations with our servants, and so get them to work more consciously with us in maintaining a high Christian tone in our homes.  If we would but take a more individual interest in them and their belongings, as we should do with those we count our friends; getting a good situation for the younger sister who is just coming on, possibly giving her a few weeks of good training in our own household; giving the delicate child of the family change of air and good food, even taking in a baby to enable a sick mother to go for a short time into a hospital.  All these things I have found possible in my own household.  And surely such thought and care for those they hold dear would form a living bond between mistress and servant.  If we would take the same thought and care for pleasant