Hands Off!

"It is never a safe thing," said my quiet little friend, "to lay violent hands on other people's lives."

Now, at the first glance, it would seem as though my friend and I had been discussing some aspect of murder, some question of meddling, either in the heat of temper or the chill of deliberate malice, with the physical well-being of others. Our conversation went deeper than this. We were talking of the arbitrary manner in which those in authority over young lives occasionally take upon themselves the responsibility of managing for these, of settling trades and professions, of decreeing what this daughter and that son shall be or shall do, forgetful of the truth, old as the ages, that every one of us has his or her own life to live, and that neither parent nor friend can answer for us in the day of account.

For example, Mrs. V. is a woman of intense and absorbing motherliness, loving and brooding over her little children with a passionate devotion which excludes every thought of personal ease and makes her days and nights a sacrifice in their behalf. So long as the children are young things to be petted, disciplined, dressed and cared for, with no stirrings of desire toward any separate or independent lives of their own, their mother is perfectly contented. There comes a day, however, when the individuality of one or another child asserts itself, and then, if the child is like the mother, strong of will and single of aim, there are clashings and heartaches.

Katharine," said Mrs. V. to an elderly friend, “has set her heart on studying medicine. Did you ever hear of anything so absurd?”

Why absurd?'' queried the friend. "Your father was a physician and your daughter may inherit something of his tastes and perhaps of his genius, for he was a man of note and of marvelous sympathy and tact as well as skill.”

"That does not matter," replied Mrs. V., soft as a feather-pillow and hard as granite. "Katharine is a girl. She has had sufficient education for the place she must occupy in life. I will not consent to this foolish caprice of hers, which I regret. She will probably marry and forget it by and by."

The mother, in this instance, successfully overbore her daughter's wish. saw Katharine not long ago. She is thirty-five and looks older by nearly ten years. Her easy life at home under the imperious rule of a mother who looks little older than herself has worn lines in her face and carved an unhappy look in the corners of her down drooping lips. With more strength of character, she would have forced her way and had her way, and been of use in her generation. She has not married.

Another girl, known to me since her babyhood, has had a love of music, which has been gratified by wise parents, who have delighted in making her

happy in her own fashion. When, several years ago, this daughter of well-to-do people wished and begged to be allowed to put her talents to account in teaching

GETTING READY FOR SOMETHING WORTH WHILE.

her profession, her people at home demurred. But, wiser than Mrs. V., they yielded the point, only stipulating that Louise should stay with them, taking no position away from her own roof.

"It hurts me," said her mother not long ago, "to see the contrast between Louise and her sisters. They are butterflies and humming-birds. She is a working bee. One day last week Miriam and Gertrude left the house to attend a lawn party in their fresh summer gowns and flying ribbons just as Louise, pale and dusty, came toiling up the road, having risen at five in the morning to catch an early train, given lessons in the city all day and finished her day's work as her sisters were flitting forth for an afternoon's enjoyment."

"Nevertheless," said I, "Louise is happier and more useful following out her own special bent, and you ought to feel satisfied."

A business man in a large town had determined that his eldest son should be brought up to the business, with a view to becoming his successor and carrying on the old house. This was right and natural had the son been born with an aptitude for business, but, unfortunately for the father's plans, the boy was an artist to his finger tips. He cared nothing for buying and selling. Customers bored him. The fluctuations of the market puzzled and baffled him, and he went to the counting-room with the laggard step of a galley-slave, chained and driven. To-day he is a sufferer from an obscure and incurable nervous disease, brought on, say his physicians, by the long and fruitless struggle to make a merchant of one whom God intended to be an artist.

I could multiply instances, but time does not suffice.

I will conclude as I began, "It is an unsafe thing to lay violent hands on other people's lives."

A Modern Madonna.

HE was a plain little woman, between thirty-five and forty years of age, wearing a last winter's cloak and a gown that had seen hard service. She pushed her way into the crowded ladies' cabin of the ferryboat, holding a great bundle in careful arms. in the ladies' cabin are generally occupied by tired men at six o'clock in the evening, and I do not blame them very much that they are frequently slow to