hat fundamental principle of
all society--obedience. My dear, a few days ago I had the proud joy of
seeing Armand crowned at the great interscholastic competition in
the crowded Sorbonne, when your godson received the first prize for
translation. At the school distribution he got two first prizes--one for
verse, and one for an essay. I went quite white when his name was called
out, and longed to shout aloud, "I am his mother!" Little Nais squeezed
my hand till it hurt, if at such a moment it were possible to feel pain.
Ah! Louise, a day like this might outweigh many a dream of love!

His brother's triumphs have spurred on little Rene, who wants to go to
school too. Sometimes the three children make such a racket, shouting
and rushing about the house, that I wonder how my head stands it. I am
always with them; no one else, not even Mary, is allowed to take care
of my children. But the calling of a mother, if taxing, has so many
compensating joys! To see a child leave its play and run to hug one, out
of the fulness of its heart, what could be sweeter?

Then it is only in being constantly with them that one can study their
characters. It is the duty of a mother, and one which she can depute to
no hired teacher, to decipher the tastes, temper, and natural aptitudes
of her children from their infancy. All home-bred children are
distinguished by ease of manner and tact, two acquired qualities which
may go far to supply the lack of natural ability, whereas no natural
ability can atone for the loss of this early training. I have already
learned to discriminate this difference of tone in the men whom I meet
in society, and to trace the hand of a woman in the formation of a
young man's manners. How could any woman defraud her children of such a
possession? You see what rewards attend the performance of my tasks!

Armand, I feel certain, will make an admirable judge, the most upright
of public servants, the most devoted of deputies. And where would you
find a sailor bolder, more adventurous, more astute than my Rene will be
a few years hence? The little rascal has already an iron will, whatever
he wants he manages to get; he will try a thousand circuitous ways to
reach his end, and if not successful then, will devise a thousand and
first. Where dear Armand quietly resigns himself and tries to get at the
reason of things, Rene will storm, and strive, and puzzle, chattering
all the time, till at last he finds some chink in the obst