A boy cannot go far wrong whose confidante is his mother. If he has been tempted, if he has done something for which he is sorry, the mother's ear and the mother's true heart are open to him. Mothers, never seem too much shocked or surprised at any confidence your boy reposes in you. Never wound him by anger or hasty reproof. Sympathize with him, rebuke him in tenderness, set him right if you can, but do not check him harshly, and have time to listen to him when he has a story to bring or a confession to make.

The Wife's Own Money.

Some time ago a very suggestive and practical article in the Congregationalist gave a wife's experience in managing the finances of the family as partner in business with her husband. Both husband and wife in that charming little essay drew upon the same bank account. A more excellent way, I think, is one which has been adopted by a friend of mine, who gives his wife on the first of every month a fixed sum, which she deposits and from which she draws for the payment of all household expenses, for the children's clothing and her own, and for certain purposes which belong to both husband and wife in common. The only stipulation made by the husband is that the wife shall never allow her balance to fall below a definite sum, which he wishes her to leave as a margin. If she has on occasion greater than usual demands upon her exchequer, he cheerfully supplements the sum in bank, so that she suffers no anxiety about ways and means. The separate bank account and independent financial management of the income, in this case, work admirably to the content of all concerned.

That the wife should be a mendicant, even a petted and indulged mendicant, is not to the conserving of her proper place in the household. When she took her husband's name and merged her own life in his she became entitled to her full share in their common interests, as truly, by virtue of her position, responsible for the right spending and right administering of the family funds as her husband for the earning of them. This is generally understood among artisans, mechanics and people belonging to the class of wage-earners whose labor is repaid by a salary. The weekly wages are apportioned to a penny between the cost of rent, fuel, food and clothing, and the wife is nearly always the treasurer and frequently the sole manager of the money her husband earns. There is seldom cause for irritation and complaint in the families of men whose income is an established one, however limited, and paid over to them in weekly or monthly sums.

It is the fluctuating income of the merchant or the professional man, the man who desires his wife to make a good appearance and convey to society an impression of his prosperity, which often causes heart-burning and sometimes wrecks domestic happiness. A man naturally generous may have a very mistaken idea of the amount necessary to carry on a family in easy comfort, to dress wife and children, to pay the wages of servants and to provision the garrison against all contingencies. Most married women dislike to ask their husbands for money, just as most grown daughters prefer not to put in such a claim upon their fathers, and a delicate care for the wife's sensitive feeling on the subject will lead a truly loving husband never to allow in her that distress. A business-like review of probable income and outgo, an apportionment of expenses, with something left over for those extras on which one never can count beforehand, would make

the difference in many homes between irritating friction and tranquil mutual understanding.

While speaking of domestic finances we should not overlook the fact that the children in the family are reasonable beings, and as early as possible should possess the father's and mother's confidence with regard to this very important matter--the right spending or saving of money. An allowance to each child, and the teaching each child to keep accounts, is one of the best ways to induce in children responsibility about money. This allowance should be very small at first and should be gradually increased with the child's increasing years. Beyond this, however, as the young people grow up they ought to know something of the family affairs, so that they may intelligently sympathize with their parents in their aims and endeavors, and that they may be armed against the temptation to a selfish extravagance.

Atmosphere Inside the Castle.

Home, be it lofty or lowly, is one's castle.

Here we repel the assaults of the world. Here, as the Shunamite said, may each say I dwell with mine own."

A cheerful atmosphere is important to happy home life. It is very hard for children to be good when they are exposed to an incessant hail-storm of faultfinding from their parents. It is very difficult for a wife to maintain a calm and charmingly sweet demeanor when her husband is critical or sullen, and takes all her tender efforts with indifferent appreciation.

I know full well the polite amazement or amiable incredulity with which men receive the statement of a woman's opinion that in the home partnership the wife, and not the husband, pulls the laboring oar. Still, it is true that, let a man's business be ever so engrossing, ever so wearisome, ever so laborious, the mere fact that he goes to it in the morning and returns from it at night sets him above his wife in ease and comfort. For him the slavery of routine has its breaks. He gets a breath of the world outside; he has change of scene daily; he sees people and hears them talk; and his home is distinctly his refuge and shelter.

Let a wife and mother love her home and her children with the most absolute unswerving devotion, and serve them with the most unselfish fidelity, there are, nevertheless, times when she's very weary.

She knows better than anyone else the steps and the stitches, the same things done over and over, and the pettiness of the trials that come from nursery and kitchen. They are so insignificant that she is ashamed to talk about them, and I fear she sometimes forgets to tell her Saviour how hard they press her, and so, bearing her cross all alone, its weight becomes crushing. A sunshiny husband

makes a merry, beautiful home, worth having, worth working in and for. If the man is breezy, cheery, considerate and sympathetic, his wife sings in her heart over the puddings and the mending-basket, counts the hours till he returns at night, and renews her youth in the security she feels of his approbation and admiration.

You may think it weak or childish, if you please, but it is the admired wife, the wife who hears words of praise and receives smiles of commendation, who is capable, discreet and executive. I have seen a timid, meek, self-distrusting little body, fairly bloom into strong, self-reliant womanhood under the tonic, the cordial of companionship with a husband who really went out of his way to find occasion for showing her how tenderly he deferred to her opinion.

In the home there should be no jar, no striving for place, no insisting on prerogatives, or division of interest. The husband and the wife are each the complement of the other. And it is just as much his duty to be cheerful as it is hers to be patient; his right to bring joy into the door as it is hers to sweeten and garnish the pleasant interior. A family where the daily walk of the father makes life a festival is filled with heavenly benedictions.