and left, above, below, and around, till he takes refuge either in
callous hardness or irritable moroseness.

A bright, noisy boy rushes in from school, eager to tell his mother
something he has on his heart, and Number One cries out,--

"Oh, you've left the door open! I do wish you wouldn't always leave the
door open! And do look at the mud on your shoes! How many times must I
tell you to wipe your feet?"

"Now there you've thrown your cap on the sofa again. When will you learn
to hang it up?"

"Don't put your slate there; that isn't the place for it."

"How dirty your hands are! what have you been doing?"

"Don't sit in that chair; you break the springs, jouncing."

"Mercy! how your hair looks! Do go up-stairs and comb it."

"There, if you haven't torn the braid all off your coat! Dear me, what a
boy!"

"Don't speak so loud; your voice goes through my head."

"I want to know, Jim, if it was you that broke up that barrel that I
have been saving for brown flour."

"I believe it was you, Jim, that hacked the edge of my razor."

"Jim's been writing at my desk, and blotted three sheets of the best
paper."

Now the question is, if any of the grown people of the family had to run
the gantlet of a string of criticisms on themselves equally true as
those that salute unlucky Jim, would they be any better-natured about it
than he is?

No; but they are grown-up people; they have rights that others are bound
to respect. Everybody cannot tell them exactly what he thinks about
everything they do. If every one could and did, would there not be
terrible reactions?

Servants in general are only grown-up children, and the same
considerations apply to them. A raw, untrained Irish girl introduced
into an elegant house has her head bewildered in every direction. There
are the gas-pipes, the water-pipes, the whole paraphernalia of elegant
and delicate conveniences, about which a thousand little details are to
be learned, the neglect of any one of which may flood the house, or
poison it with foul air, or bring innumerable inconveniences. The
setting of a genteel table and the waiting upon it involve fifty
possibilities of mistake, each one of which will grate on the nerves of
a whole family. There is no wonder, then, that the occasions of
fault-finding in families are so constant and harassing; and there is no
wonder that mistress and maid often meet each other on the terms of the
bear and the man who fell together fifty