Read no letters, books, or papers in company; but when there is a necessity for doing it, you must ask leave. Come not near the books or writings of any one so as to read them, unless desired, nor give your opinion of them unasked; also, look not nigh when another is writing a letter.

Show not yourself glad at the misfortune of another though he were your enemy.

Let your discourse with men of business be short and comprehensive; with men of station, respectful, and by no means inquisitive.

In visiting the sick, do not play the physician, if you be not knowing therein.

In writing or speaking, give to every person his due title, according to his degree and the custom of the place.

Strive not with your superiors in argument, but always submit your judgment to others with modesty. Undertake not to teach your equal in the art he professes; it savors of arrogance.

When a man does all he can, though it succeeds not well, blame not him that did it.

Being about to advise or reprehend any one, consider whether it ought to be in public or in private, presently or at some other time; in what terms to do it; and, in reproving, show no signs of choler, but do it with sweetness and mildness.

Take all admonitions thankfully, in what time or place soever given; but afterward, not being culpa

ble, take a time or place convenient to let him know it that gave the admonition.

Mock not nor jest at anything of importance; break no jests that are sharp or biting; and if you deliver anything witty and pleasant abstain from laughing thereat yourself.

Wherein you reprove another, be unblamable yourself; for example is more prevalent than precept.

Use no reproachful language against any one, neither curse nor revile.

Be not hasty to believe flying reports to the disparagement of any.

In your apparel, be modest, and endeavor to accommodate nature, rather than to procure admiration; keep to the fashions of your equals, and such as are proper with respect to times and places.

Play not the peacock, looking everywhere about you to see if you are well decked, if your shoes fit well, if your stockings fit neatly, or clothes handsomely.

Associate yourself with men of good character, and remember that it is better to be alone than in bad company.

Let your conversation be without malice or envy, for it is a sign of a tractable and commendable nature; and in all causes of passion, admit reason to govern.

GEORGE WASHINGTON.

A HOME IN OLD VIRGINIA.

THOMAS NELSON PAGE was born in Oakland, Hanover County, Virginia, April 23, 1853. He graduated at Washington and Lee University and, as a student of the law, at the University of Virginia. During sixteen years he practiced in Richmond, but more recently he has made literature his profession. His books of fiction, essay, and comment have delighted many readers. In the expression of the negro dialect he is supreme, and all his work is charming. His present residence is Washington, D.C.

The selection here used is taken from "Social Life in Virginia," by courtesy of Charles Scribner's Sons.

The mansion was a plain "weatherboard" house, one story and a half above the half-basement ground floor, set on a hill in a grove of primeval oaks and hickories filled in with ash, maples, and featheryleafed locusts without number. . . . It had quaint dormer windows, with small panes, poking out from its sloping upstairs rooms, and long porches to shelter its walls from the sun and allow house life in the open air.

The life about the place was amazing. There were the busy children playing in groups, the boys of the family mingling with the little darkies.

There they were, stooping down and jumping up; turning and twisting, their heads close together, like

chickens over an "invisible repast," their active bodies always in motion: busy over their little matters with that ceaseless energy of boyhood which could move the world could it but be concentrated and conserved.

They were all over the place: in the orchard robbing birds' nests; getting into wild excitement over catbirds, which they ruthlessly murdered because they "called snakes"; in spring and summer fishing or washing in the creek, riding the plow-horses to and from the fields, running the calves and colts, and being as mischievous as the young mules they chased.

There were the little girls in their great sunbonnets, often sewed on to preserve the wonderful peach-blossom complexions, with their small female companions playing about the yard and garden, running with and wishing they were boys, and getting halfscoldings from mammy for being tomboys and tearing their aprons and dresses.

There, in the shade, near her "house," was the mammy with her assistants, her little charge in her arms, sleeping in her ample lap, or toddling about by her, with broken, half-formed phrases, better understood than framed.

There passed young negro girls, blue-habited, running about bearing messages; or older women moving at a statelier pace, doing with deliberation the little tasks which were their "work"; whilst about the office or smokehouse or dairy or woodpile there was always some movement and life.

The peace of it all was only emphasized by the sounds that broke upon it: the call of plowers to their teams; the shrill shouts of children; the chant of women over their work, and as a bass the recurrent hum of spinning-wheels, like the drone of some great insect, sounding from the cabins where the turbaned spinners spun their fleecy rolls for the looms which were clacking in the loom-rooms, making homespun for the plantation.

From the back yard and quarters the laughter of women and the shrill, joyous voices of children came. Far off in the fields, the white-shirted plowers followed, singing, their slow teams in the fresh furrows; wagons rattled, and ox-carts crawled along, or gangs of hands in lines performed their work in the corn or tobacco fields, loud shouts and peals of laughter, mellowed by the distance, floating up from time to time, telling that the heart was light and the toil not too heavy.

Though the plantations were large, so large that one master could not hear his neighbor's dog bark, there was never any loneliness it was movement and life without bustle; whilst somehow, in the midst. of it all, the house seemed to sit enthroned in perpetual tranquillity, with outstretched wings under its spreading oaks, sheltering its children like a great gray dove.

[Abridgment.]

THOMAS NELSON PAGE.