ther, and a large, blonde, lackadaisical person responded to my call.
She came, contrary to regulations, during class hours, and Gwendolin
promptly began to howl at sight of her. It is, by the way, noted by most
teachers and explained by few parents, that the sight of a face from
home will generally produce hysterics.

Well, I allowed Mrs. Marks to undo the effect of her appearance, and
with Gwendolin almost buried in the exuberances of the maternal costume
and figure, she proceeded to explain that dear Gwendolin was always
deliberate. It was her nature. We all, she hoped, were entitled to our
natures. Gwendolin's dear father was always late for breakfast, and they
never did, by any chance, see the first act of a play. She thought she
would step around and explain this to me, knowing that I would make
allowances for the sweet child. "For I always tell her," she beamed on
me, "that her dear teacher would rather have her late every day in the
year than ruin her stomach by eating too quickly." And as to her crying,
well, Mrs. Marks opined, it was a very strong commentary on the manners
and natures of the other children in the class. Of course Gwendolin
cried. Her mother cried. On the slightest provocation. Never could help
it. Never hoped to be able to help it. Why, it was only that morning
that Mr. Marks had remarked that any one who cried over the newspaper
should wait until after breakfast to read it.

I controlled my true feelings sufficiently to ask her what effect an
epidemic of Gwendolin's little characteristics would have upon my class.
I urged her imagination to picture fifty children late every morning
because their fifty fathers always missed the first act of a play, and
fifty voices always raised in howls because fifty mothers wept upon one
hundred poached eggs on toast.

"Oh, but dear me," purred Mrs. Marks, as she heaved herself to the
perpendicular, shedding Gwendolin, a pocket-book, a handkerchief, and a
fan--"oh, but dear me, my sweet Gwendolin is such an exceptional child."

There is another class of parent from whom teachers suffer much. It
generally has but one child, and that child is generally a pitiful,
conscientious, earnest little creature in sombre hair ribbons and
"Comfort" shoes. Very frequently this parent has been, in some
prehistoric age, a teacher of mathematics in a high-school. Now, a
spiritualistic seance at which Messrs. Froebel, Pestalozzi, Herbart,
Locke, and Spencer should appear a