convenient as it is pleasant, while if one grows to depend upon it,
it is as liable to part with its sparkle as soda-water in an open glass.

And then if one comes to consider the commoner claim, the claim to be
felt and respected and regarded in one's own little circle, it is
wholesome and humiliating to observe how generously and easily that
regard is conceded to affectionateness and kindness, and how little it
is won by any brilliance or sharpness. Of course irritable,
quick-tempered, severe, discontented people can win attention easily
enough, and acquire the kind of consideration which is generally
conceded to anyone who can be unpleasant. How often families and groups
are drilled and cautioned by anxious mothers and sisters not to say or
do anything which will vex so-and-so! Such irritable people get the
rooms and the chairs and the food that they like, and the talk in their
presence is eagerly kept upon subjects on which they can hold forth.
But how little such regard lasts, and how welcome a relief it is, when
one that is thus courted and deferred to is absent! Of course if one is
wholly indifferent whether one is regarded, needed, missed, loved, so
long as one can obtain the obedience and the conveniences one likes,
there is no more to be said. But I often think of that wonderful poem
of Christina Rossetti's about the revenant, the spirit that returns to
the familiar house, and finds himself unregretted:

"'To-morrow' and 'to-day,' they cried;
I was of yesterday!"

One sometimes sees, in the faces of old family servants, in unregarded
elderly relatives, bachelor uncles, maiden aunts, who are entertained
as a duty, or given a home in charity, a very beautiful and tender
look, indescribable in words but unmistakable, when it seems as if
self, and personal claims, and pride, and complacency had really passed
out of the expression, leaving nothing but a hope of being loved, and a
desire to do some humble service.

I saw it the other day in the face of a little old lady, who lived in
the house of a well-to-do cousin, with rather a bustling and vigorous
family pervading the place. She was a small frail creature, with a
tired worn face, but with no look of fretfulness or discontent. She had
a little attic as a bedroom, and she was not considered in any way. She
effaced herself, ate about as much as a bird would eat, seldom spoke,
uttering little ejaculations of surprise and amusement at what was
said; if