lways mean to act
for the best,--exactly what you would have him believe of your nearest
and dearest. A woman who has never had a suspicion of difference with
her relations-in-law, confides to me of the course she has pursued
throughout her married life. She says:

"I have never told Charlie that I notice the faults of his family, nor
have I ever called his attention to any of their foibles. In that way
I have prevented him from feeling that he must side with them against
me. He comes to me often with the story of some difference he has had
with his mother, and he talks freely of his sister's failings and his
brother's inconsistencies. He even sometimes gets righteously
indignant, and fairly sputters. Inwardly, I chuckle with amusement,
and outwardly I appear sympathetic, but never a word do I say to
commit myself. It is his family, and if there is a row, I, to quote
Young America, 'am not in it.'"

I happen to know that this woman's husband's family think that
"Charlie has a none-such of a wife," and that they are all fond of
her.

If tact and diplomacy are ever exercised, it must be in the management
of relations-in-law. The thought that so often the state is one of
hatred, or, at best, tolerance, makes the position of all concerned
strained and delicate. To many a mother the term "mother-in-law" is a
much-dreaded appellation. A woman upon whom this doubtful honor has
recently been laid, said to me:

"I hope my boy will never set his wife against me by asking her to 'do
things as his mother did.' I shudder to think of it. I want him to
tell her that the mince and pumpkin pies, biscuits, muffins, and even
gingerbread, made by his wife are vastly superior to any ever produced
by his mother. I would rather take the second place in my son's
affections than have my new daughter for one moment think of me as her
'mother-in-law.'"

I believe that this is the sincere sentiment of more than one fond
mother, as I am also sure that many a fond wife would rather have her
husband loved by her own family than to receive so much affection
herself. She is sure of her position, but John is a dreadful
"relation-in-law," and it is hard to love such. It is sad to think
such a mother or wife makes a fatal mistake from the very start, and
herself brings about the state of affairs she dreads.

The recognition of a fact often seems to make it doubly true. The
knowledge that relations-in-law are frequently relations-at-war,
predispos