of our parlor, and
prayed the good fairies to avert the advent of ill-assorted articles.

"Pray keep common sense uppermost in the girls' heads, if you can,"
said I to Mrs. Crowfield, "and don't let the poor little puss spend
her money for what she won't care a button about by and by."

"I shall try," she said; "but you know Marianne is inexperienced, and
Jenny is so ardent and active, and so confident, too. Then they both,
I think, have the impression that we are a little behind the age. To
say the truth, my dear, I think your papers afford a good opportunity
of dropping a thought now and then in their minds. Jenny was asking
last night when you were going to write your next paper. The girl has
a bright, active mind, and thinks of what she hears."

So flattered, by the best of flatterers, I sat down to write on my
theme; and that evening, at firelight time, I read to my little senate
as follows:--

WHAT IS A HOME, AND HOW TO KEEP IT

I have shown that a dwelling, rented or owned by a man, in which his
own wife keeps house, is not always, or of course, a home. What is it,
then, that makes a home? All men and women have the indefinite
knowledge of what they want and long for when that word is spoken.
"Home!" sighs the disconsolate bachelor, tired of boarding-house fare
and buttonless shirts. "Home!" says the wanderer in foreign lands, and
thinks of mother's love, of wife and sister and child. Nay, the word
has in it a higher meaning hallowed by religion; and when the
Christian would express the highest of his hopes for a better life, he
speaks of his _home_ beyond the grave. The word "home" has in it the
elements of love, rest, permanency, and liberty; but, besides these,
it has in it the idea of an education by which all that is purest
within us is developed into nobler forms, fit for a higher life. The
little child by the home-fireside was taken on the Master's knee when
he would explain to his disciples the mysteries of the kingdom.

Of so great dignity and worth is this holy and sacred thing, that the
power to create a HOME ought to be ranked above all creative
faculties. The sculptor who brings out the breathing statue from cold
marble, the painter who warms the canvas into a deathless glow of
beauty, the architect who built cathedrals and hung the world-like
dome of St. Peter's in midair, is not to be compared, in sanctity and
worthiness, to the humblest artist who, out of the poor materials
afforded by th