ossip is liable to degenerate
into evil speaking and then I think it tends to degrade and belittle the
mind to dwell on the defects and imperfections of our neighbors. Learn
to dwell on the things that are just and true and of good report, but I
am sorry for Annette, poor child."

"What makes her so strange, do you know?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Lasette somewhat absently.

"If you do, won't you tell me?"

Again Mrs. Lasette answered in the same absent manner.

"Why mama, what is the matter with you; you say yes to everything and
yet you are not paying any attention to anything that I say. You seem
like someone who hears, but does not listen; who sees, but does not
look. Your face reminds me of the time when I showed you the picture of
a shipwreck and you said, 'My brother's boat went down in just such a
fearful storm.'"

"My dear child," said Mrs. Lasette, rousing up from a mournful reverie,
"I was thinking of a wreck sadder, far sadder than the picture you
showed me. It was the mournful wreck of a blighted life."

"Whose life, mama?"

"The life of Annette's [grand]mother. We were girls together and I loved
her dearly," Mrs. Lasette replied as tears gathered in her eyes when she
recalled one of the saddest memories of her life.

"Do tell me all about it, for I am full of curiosity."

"My child, I want this story to be more than food for your curiosity; I
want it to be a lesson and a warning to you. Annette's grandmother was
left to struggle as breadwinner for a half dozen children when her
husband died. Then there were not as many openings for colored girls as
there are now. Our chief resource was the field of domestic service, and
circumstances compelled Annette's mother to live out, as we called it.
In those days we did not look down upon a girl and try to ostracize her
from our social life if she was forced to be a servant. If she was poor
and respectable we valued her for what she was rather than for what she
possessed. Of course we girls liked to dress nicely, but fine clothes
was not the chief passport to our society, and yet I think on the whole
that our social life would compare favorably with yours in good
character, if not in intellectual attainments. Our dear old mothers were
generally ignorant of books, but they did try to teach good manners and
good behavior; but I do not think they saw the danger around the paths
of the inexperienced with the same clearness of vision we now do. Mrs.
Harcourt had unbo