"low
fellow" was because the tiny thorn of neglect had wounded his vanity
and pricked and rankled into a fester. This is human nature, but as we
advance in years, we appreciate that people may be really excellent in
many respects, and yet have no great fondness for us. Youth still has
much to learn.

Ten girls whom I know formed a society for the repression of unkind
criticism. The members pledged themselves to try, as far as in them
lay, to speak kindly of people when it was possible for them to do so,
and when impossible to say nothing. At first it was hard, for
self-conceit would intrude, and it is hard for one girl to praise
another who dislikes her. Little by little the tiny seed of effort
grew into a habit of kindly speech.

What volumes it argues for a woman's gentle ladyhood and Christianity
when it can truthfully be said of her, "She never speaks uncharitably
of anybody!"

Let us older people set an example of tolerance and charitable speech.
Too often our children are but reproductions, perhaps somewhat highly
colored, of ourselves, our virtues, and our faults. And this is
especially true of the mothers. John Jarndyce gives us a word of
encouragement when he says--

"I think it must somewhere be written that the virtues of the
mothers shall occasionally be visited upon the children, as
well as the sins of the father."

Such being the case, let us children of a larger growth show such
tact, unselfishness and tender charity, that our children, seeing
these virtues, may copy them, and thereby aid in removing the
disagreeable traits of, at least, our Young Persons.

CHAPTER XXII.

OUR BOY.

The following is a _bona fide_ letter. It is written in such genuine
earnest, and so clearly voices the sentiments of many young men of the
present day, that I am glad to have an opportunity to answer it.

1. Why should I, a fast-growing, hard-working youth of eighteen, who
go every morning, four miles by street-car, to my office, and the same
back at night, often so weary and faint as to be hardly able to sit,
not to say stand, be obliged to give up my seat to any flighty, flashy
girl who has come down-town to shop, or frolic, or do nothing? Isn't
she as able to "swing corners" holding on to a strap as I? and to hold
her own perpendicular in the aisle?

2. Why isn't it as rude for her and her companions to giggle and whisper
and stare, the objects of amusement being her fellow-passengers, as i