en the temptation
assails me, I recall the dreary picture of Florence Henty, who polished
the brass doorknobs of this institution for seven years--and I sternly
shove the children on.

I get angry every time I think of Mrs Lippett. She had exactly the
point of view of a Tammany politician--no slightest sense of service to
society. Her only interest in the John Grier Home was to get a living
out of it.

Wednesday.

What new branch of learning do you think I have introduced into my
asylum? Table manners!

I never had any idea that it was such a lot of trouble to teach children
how to eat and drink. Their favorite method is to put their mouths down
to their mugs and lap their milk like kittens. Good manners are not
merely snobbish ornaments, as Mrs. Lippett's regime appeared to believe.
They mean self-discipline and thought for others, and my children have
got to learn them.

That woman never allowed them to talk at their meals, and I am having
the most dreadful time getting any conversation out of them above a
frightened whisper. So I have instituted the custom of the entire staff,
myself included, sitting with them at the table, and directing the talk
along cheerful and improving lines.

Also I have established a small, very strict training table, where
the little dears, in relays, undergo a week of steady badgering. Our
uplifting table conversations run like this:

"Yes, Tom, Napoleon Bonaparte was a very great man--elbows off the
table. He possessed a tremendous power of concentrating his mind on
whatever he wanted to have; and that is the way to accomplish--don't
snatch, Susan; ask politely for the bread, and Carrie will pass it to
you.--But he was an example of the fact that selfish thought just for
oneself, without considering the lives of others, will come to disaster
in the--Tom! Keep your mouth shut when you chew--and after the battle
of Waterloo--let Sadie's cooky alone--his fall was all the greater
because--Sadie Kate, you may leave the table. It makes no difference
what he did. Under no provocation does a lady slap a gentleman."

Two more days have passed; this is the same kind of meandering letter I
write to Judy. At least, my dear man, you can't complain that I haven't
been thinking about you this week! I know you hate to be told all about
the asylum, but I can't help it, for it's all I know. I don't have five
minutes a day to read the papers. The big outside world has dropped
away. My inter