Very sweet and sacred to a mother are the first manifestations of tenderness towards herself. A child about the age of two has a way of looking at and touching its mother's face with something of the rapturous expression of a lover. Still sweeter, perhaps, are the first clear indications of loving concern. The temporary loss of her presence, due to illness or other cause, is often the occasion for the appearance of a deeper tenderness. A little boy of three spontaneously brought his story-book to his mother when she lay in bed ill; and the same child used to follow her about after her recovery with all the devotion of a little knight. At other times it is the suspicion of an injury to his beloved one, as when one little fellow seeing the strange doctor lay hold of his mother's wrist stood up like an outraged turkey-cock, backing into his mother's skirts, ready to charge the assaulter. A deeper and thoughtful kind of sympathy often comes with the advent of the more reflective years. Thought about the overhanging terror, death, is sometimes its awakener. "Are you old, mother?" asked a boy of five. "Why?" she answered. "Because," he continued, "the older you are the nearer you are to dying." There was no doubt thought of his own loss in this question: yet there was, one may hope, a germ of solicitude for the mother too. This first thought for others frequently takes the practical form of helpfulness. A child loves nothing better than to assist in little household occupations. A boy of two years and one month happened to overhear his nurse say to herself: "I wish that Anne would remember to fill the nursery boiler". "He listened, and presently trotted off; found the said Anne doing a distant grate, pulled her by the apron, saying: 'Nanna, Nanna!' (come to nurse). She followed, surprised and puzzled, the child pulling all the way, till, having got her into the nursery, he pointed to the boiler, and added: 'Go dare, go dare,' so that the girl comprehended and did as he bade her." With this practical form of sympathy there goes a quite charming disposition to give pleasure in other ways. A little girl when just a year old was given to offering her toys, flowers, and other pretty things to everybody. Generosity is as truly an impulse of childhood as greediness, and it is odd to observe their alternate play. Early in the second year, too, children are wont to show themselves kindly by giving kisses and other pretty courtesies. In truth from about this date they are often quite charming in their expressions of good will, so that the good Bishop Earle hardly exaggerates when he writes of the child: "He kisses and loves all, and when the smart of the rod is past, smiles on his beater". Later on a like amiable disposition will show itself in graceful turns of speech, as when a little girl, aged three and a quarter, petitioned her mother this wise: "Please, mamma, will you pin this with the greatest pleasure?"