the
most exasperating. She herself was complacently aware of the first
fact, and referred to it frequently in conversation, enumerating her
benefactions with obvious satisfaction: of the latter attribute she
remained blandly, blindly unaware. The combination is frequent, the
havoc wrought thereby in domestic circles widespread throughout the
land. Mrs Mallison rose early from preference. Having reached a time
of life when she required little sleep, she found it a relief to rise at
seven, and by an exercise of logic, unanswerable to her own judgment,
considered it incumbent upon the whole household to experience a similar
briskness. She read a chapter of the Bible and the day's portion of
Daily Light before leaving her bedroom, and prayed sadly to be preserved
throughout the trials and temptations of the day. To expect happiness
she would have considered a flippant attitude, unworthy a professing
Christian, the glad morning face had no justification in her eyes.

"Well, Bailey! I wonder what trials the Lord has in store for me
to-day!" she would sigh meekly to the old servant who brought her early
tea, and sallying forth from her bedroom, thus expectant, seldom failed
to encounter several minor trials on the way downstairs: Dust; grease;
marks on white paint. It was usually a chastened Mrs Mallison who took
her seat behind the urn.

Mrs Mallison had an active mind and a cumbersome body. This
combination is also widely known, and deplored by grown-up daughters.
No sooner had an idea entered her mind, than she wished it put into
instant execution--by a daughter. Whatever the daughter might be doing,
however responsible might be her work, she must leave it, dismiss it
from her mind, be ready with heart and will to execute her mother's
behests. Such was a daughter's duty; to fail in it was to risk
references to serpents' teeth, and to that subsequent burden of remorse,
to be borne by the delinquent, when death should have removed her mother
to another sphere. Mary Mallison found it simpler to give in at once,
leave a letter half-written, or a photographic plate half-toned, and
adjourn upstairs to move the position of jars on the storeroom shelves,
or make sure that a drawer was safely locked. She would even rise in
the middle of her breakfast, and walk meekly into the drawing-room to
feel if the palms needed water; but Mary was thirty-two, and anaemic
into the bargain, and her axiom in life was, "For goodness'