gain, she may have
some nearer and dearer one to whom she "tells everything," even the
secrets of her friends. Or, you may in time learn to be ashamed of the
confidence which you have reposed in this person, and the knowledge
that she knows and remembers the thing, and, it may be, knows that you
feel a mortification at the thought of it, will gall you unspeakably.

Perhaps the hardest struggle that comes to the average human being is
to let others be mistaken. Yet what good will it do to point out to
them their mistakes? If your husband or son tells several people that
he met John Smith last week in New York, and you know that he was in
that city three weeks ago, why correct him? He is talking hastily and
does not stop to measure his words or time. The mistake is
unimportant. Why antagonize a man by exclaiming:

"My dear John! This is the third week in January, and you went to New
York immediately after Christmas."

When you hear your friend tell your favorite story, and change some
minor detail, she will love you not a whit the more if you correct her
with--

"No, Mary! the way it happened was this"--and then proceed with the
tale in the manner which you consider best.

There are so many things which we all do for which there is no honest
reason, that I will mention only one more. That is the exceedingly
uncomfortable trick of reminding a man of something he has once said,
when he has since had occasion to change his mind. Perhaps some years
ago when you first met your now dear friend, you thought her manner
affected, and did not hesitate to mention the fact to your family.
Since then you have become so well acquainted with her delightful
points that you forget your early impression of her. How do you feel
when you are enthusiastically enumerating her many lovable attributes,
if the member of the household with the fiendish memory strikes in
with--

"Oh, then you have changed your mind about her? You remember you once
said that you considered her the most affected mortal whom you had
ever met."

Under such provocation does not murder assume the guise of justifiable
homicide?

There is no more bitter diet than to be forced to eat one's own words.
Never tell one of an opinion which he once held, if he has since had
reason to alter his views. There is no sin or weakness in changing
one's mind. It is a thing which all of us--if we except a few victims
to pig-headed prejudice--do daily. And, as a rule, we hate to