LUCRETIA MOTT'S HOME

"The most perfect wedded life to be found on earth," was what a friend said of that of James Mott and his wife Lucretia, the pioneer "woman's right woman." It was through intellectual pursuits that she and James came to know and love each other. They were schoolfellows and when school days were over, took up, the study of French together. They married young, worked hard and were very happy. Their first child died, saying, "I love thee, mother." She kept

When Mrs. Mott was twenty-five, there were four little ones. her home exquisitely clean, did all the family sewing, studied her Bible, read John Stuart Mill, Dean Stanley and various books of philosophy and science, and spent many happy hours with her baby on her lap, her sewing in her hand, her book open on her bed. When the Motts became prosperous, their large house was always full to overflowing; they were hospitality itself. Two of their married children with their families lived with them, and the home was delightfully harmonious. Two armchairs in the hall, called "beggars' chairs" by the children were in constant occupation by people who came to Mrs. Mott for help. Everything was cheerful and sunny. The Golden Wedding, in 1861, well deserved the descriptive adjective, so joyous was it. Mr. Mott was very proud of his wife; seventy years had not robbed the Quakeress of her marvelous beauty, and the charm of her soul had grown with the years.

In his last illness, when Mrs. Mott had watched her husband through the night, her daughter came in the morning to find her mother sitting beside the bed, asleep from weariness, her head on the pillow with that of her husband, who was sleeping the sleep that knows no waking. When dying herself, she murmured, "If you resolve to follow the Lamb wherever you may be led, you will find all the ways pleasant and the paths peace."

A CHILD'S HAND

Perhaps there are tenderer, sweeter things
Somewhere in this bright land;

But I thank the Lord for his blessings,

And the clasp of a little hand.

A little hand that softly stole

Into my own one day,

When I needed the touch that I loved so much

To strengthen me on the way.

Softer it seemed than the softest down
On the breast of the gentlest dove;
But its timid press and its faint caress
Were strong in the strength of love.

-Frank L. Stanton.

THE GARRET

It is an old garret with big, brown rafters; and the boards between stained darkly with the rain-storms of fifty years. As the sportive April shower quickens its flood, it seems as if its torrents would come dashing through the shingles, upon you, and upon your play. But they will not; for you know that the old roof is strong, and that it has kept you, and all that love you, for long years from the rain, and from the cold: you know that the hardest storms of winter will only make a little oozing leak, that trickles down the brown stairs-like

tears.

You love that old garret roof; and you nestle down under its slope, with a sense of its protecting power that no castle walls can give to your maturer years. Under the roof-tree of his home, the boy feels safe; and where, in the whole realm of life, with his bitter toils, and its bitterer temptations, will he feel safe again?

I know no nobler forage ground for a romantic, venturesome, mischievous boy, than the garret of an old family mansion, on a day of storm. It is a perfect field of chivalry. The heavy rafters, the dashing rain, the piles of spare mattresses to carouse upon, the big trunks to hide in, the old coats and hats hanging in obscure corners, like ghosts-are great! And it is so far away from the nursery, that there is no possible risk of a scolding. There is no baby in the garret to wake up. There is no "company" in the garret to be disturbed by the noise.

Old family garrets have their stocks, as I said, of castaway clothes, of twenty years gone by; and it is rare sport to put them on, buttoning in a pillow or two for the sake of good fulness, and then to trick out Nelly in some strangeshaped head-gear, and old-fashioned brocade petticoat caught up with pins; and in such guise to steal cautiously down stairs, and creep slyly into the sitting-room-half afraid of a scolding, and very sure of good fun-trying to look very sober, and yet almost ready to die with the laugh that you know you will make. Your mother tries to look severely at little Nelly for putting on her grandmother's best bonnet; but Nelly's laughing eyes forbid it utterly; and the mother spoils all her scolding with a perfect shower of kisses.

-Donald G. Mitchell.

SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S HOME

Isaac Newton's father was a farmer, and died some months before Isaac's birth. After the death of her husband, Mrs. Newton married again, and Isaac was sent to live with his grandmother. When old enough, he attended school, but all of his spare time was devoted to the making of water-wheels, windmills, kites and numerous little mechanical contrivances. When Isaac was fifteen years of age, his stepfather died, and the boy was called to help take care of the farm. In this work he showed very little interest,--he would rather go off to the hay-loft and read a book, or ponder over some question in mathematics.

His uncle, the Rev. W. Ayscough, found him in the loft one day, reading Euclid and the laws of Kepler, and decided to send him to Trinity College. Here Newton took up the study of mathematics. In 1664 he took his degree of Bachelor of Arts.

While he was at college a plague broke out in Cambridge, which necessitated his leaving the place for a short time. During this vacation, while sitting in his orchard, the famous "fall of the apple" incident occurred, which has become a part of history, and which was the indirect means of leading to his theory of the law of gravitation. Returning to college, Newton, after obtaining a fellowship and professorship, became a member of the Royal Society and was knighted in 1705.

In the old house at 35 St. Martin's street, Newton spent some fifteen years in study. On the roof he had an observatory, where he delighted to carry on his studies.

THE MENDING BASKET

When the clothing comes from the laundry, confide such of it as needs the "stitch in time" to the work basket. And by the work basket I do not mean the little basket that holds the spool and thread and the light sewing materials, but a basket large enough to hold whatever needs to be repaired, or whatever piece of unfinished work may be on hand. Never let an unmended article get back into the drawer of clothing that is ready for service.

And when the repairs have been made, place the fresh article at the bottom of its own pile, using for your next occasion the article on the top of the pile. In this way none of the clothing will be allowed to remain in the drawer until it becomes yellow from lack of use, and the wear will be about equal on all the suits. One of our objects is to dress well, and, at the same time, to avoid great accumulation of garments-too good to be thrown away, not good enough for comfortable use, yet endured for economy's sake.

Never fall into the mistake of supposing that it is of no importance that any garments be nice except those worn in sight. Fineness of texture, daintiness of trimming, these can be dispensed with, but perfect cleanliness and perfect wholeness are indispensable. There is an intangible ethical influence, or, as a good country mother put it. "There's a sight of good manners comes jest with bein' dressed up. My children always behave better in their best clothes." She was right. The girl who "don't care what she puts on" doesn't care for some other things that she ought not to forget.

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That same good country mother used to say, Always wear what you would be willin' to be brought home in if somethin' dretful should happen." Nothing dreadful ever did happen, but her children all grew up feeling that nothing could be more "dreadful" than to be found in soiled or ragged attire. The right sort of mending basket is a moral influence in the house.

GOSSIP

'Twas but a breath

And yet a woman's fair fame wilted,

And friends once fond grew cold and stilted;
And life was worse than death.

One venomed word,

That struck its coward, poisoned blow
In craven whispers, hushed and low,
And yet the wide world heard.

'Twas but one whispered-one-
That muttered low, for very shame,
The thing the slanderer dared not name,
And yet its work was done.

A hint so slight,

And yet so mighty in its power,
A human soul, in one short hour,

Lies crushed beneath its blight.

HOMES A LONG TIME AGO

The rough and wattled farm-houses were being superseded by dwellings of brick and stone. Pewter was replacing the wooden trenchers of the early yeomanry, and there were yeomen who could boast of a fair show of silver plate The chimney-corner, so closely associated with family life, came into existence with the general introduction of chimneys, a feature rare in ordinary houses at the beginning of this reign. Pillows, which had before been despised by the farmer and the trader as fit only "for women in childbed," were now in general use. Carpets superseded the filthy flooring or rushes. The loftier houses of the wealthier merchants, their carved staircases, their quaintly figured gables, marked the rise of a new middle class which was to play its part in later history.

A social as well as an architectural change covered England with buildings where the thought of defense was abandoned for that of domestic comfort and refinement. We still gaze with pleasure on their picturesque line of gables, their fretted fronts, their gilded turrets and fanciful vanes, their castellated gateways, the jutting oriels, from which the great noble looked down on his new Italian garden, on its stately terraces and broad flights of steps, its vases and fountains, its quaint mazes, its formal walks, its lines of yews cut into grotesque shapes in hopeless rivalry of the cypress avenues of the South.

Nor was the change less within than without. The life of the Middle

Ages concentrated itself in the vast castle hall, where the baron looked from his upper dais on the retainers who gathered at his board.. But the great households were fast breaking up; and the whole feudal economy disappeared when the lord of the household withdrew with his family into his "parlor" or "withdrawing-room," and left the hall to his dependants. The prodigal use of glass became a marked feature in the domestic architecture of the time, and one whose influence on the general health of the people can hardly be overrated. Long lines of windows stretched over the fronts of the new manor halls. Every merchant's house had its oriel. "You shall have sometimes," Lord Bacon grumbled, "your houses so full of glass that we cannot tell where to come to be out of the sun, or the cold."-John Richard Green.

MAKE HASTE IN ORDER TO MAKE LEISURE

I knew a woman who was heard to say, "It seems to me that I have begun to live my life by the clock. I work by the clock, talk by the clock, walk by the clock, and perhaps am in danger of saying my prayers and loving my friends by the clock."

At first thought such condition of things seemed altogether and absolutely bad. When we come to regulate our prayers and our affections by the clock the mischief is evident, but there might be two opinions with reference to our outward and mechanical duties.

There is a certain amount of wear and tear on the nervous system that comes from being in a hurry. There is an old Spanish problem that, translated, says, "hurry is the devil," and if we consider the mischief that is done by the resultant irritation of temper, we might feel that hurry is not misnamed. It is a demon that, because of their natural nervous activity, besets women when it lets men alone.

Now this sort of hurry is wrong; but the other kind of which we spoke is simply the training of the whole nature into the habit of doing quickly whatever can be hastened without harm. It is astonishing what can be accomplished by one who knows what she wants to do and knows how to set about doing it. No woman has a right to worry herself and other people until the beauty goes out of her life and the comfort out of theirs, yet she should learn to do as much as can be done in a short space of time.

Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith." That is, it is better to have peace without plenty than plenty without peace; that, where there is but a slender subsistence, yet an uninterrupted interchange of mutual endearments, among those of the same family, imparts a more solid satisfaction than to fare sumptuously every day, or to live in great and pompous buildings, great and noble apartments, everything great but perhaps the owners themselves.-Jeremiah Sead.