become sufficiently clear, and her hand steady enough, to pick out the diamonds of duty from the glass chips which pass with the superficial observer for first-water gems.  It is well for our housewife to have some test-stone duty by which she may rate the importance of other tasks.  Such a test-stone may be John’s or baby’s needs or requirements.  Of course she must not expect to make as much show to the outside world by keeping the children well and happy, entertaining her husband each evening until he forgets the trials and vexations of his business-day, preparing toothsome and wholesome dainties for the loved ones, and making home sweet and attractive, as does the society woman who attends twenty teas a week, gives large lunches and dinners, and “takes in” every play and opera.

“The little bird sits at his door in the sun,
   Atilt like a blossom among the leaves,
And lets his illumined being o’errun
   With the deluge of summer it receives. 
His mate feels the eggs beneath her wings,
   And the heart in her dumb breast flutters and sings;
He sings to the wide world, and she to her nest;
   In the nice ear of Nature which song is the best?”

If my reader is a mother it will not take very long for her to justly determine the values.

Recently I heard a busy woman and an excellent housewife say:  “If I am pressed with important work, and my parlors are not very dusty, I unblushingly wipe off the polished furniture, on which every speck shows, and leave the upholstered articles until another time.”

This was not untidiness.  It was only putting time and work to the best advantage, that there might be enough to go around.

I read the other day in the woman’s department of a prominent paper a letter from a subscriber who said that she was so driven with work that it was all she could do to get her washing done, much less her ironing.  So she had determined to use her bed-linen and underclothing rough-dry.  Would it not have been wiser as well as neater, for her to have plain, untrimmed underwear, and iron it without starching?  For here comfort is also to be considered.  Is not smooth, neat linen to take the precedence of trimming and starch?

Another thing which must not be crowded out is rest, and the care of the health,—­and the one includes the other.  A day in which no breathing-space has been found is a wicked day.  Not only is it our duty to the bodies which God has given to care properly for them, but it is, moreover, a positive duty to our fellow-man.  An overworked person is likely to be cross and disagreeable, for the mind is affected by the state of the body, and it is an absolute sin to put ourselves into a condition that makes others miserable.  It is also wretched economy to burn the candle at both ends every day.  When it is needed to aid us in some large piece of work the wick will be consumed, and the light will faintly flicker, or splutter feebly and die.