words which just express the whole situation. Even after she marries our anxiety and loving concern for her in her new sphere quite equals the old; her little children, reminding us of what she was once to us, are dear to us in a way our son's children can never be. It seems a strange anomaly, yet will most mothers bear me out in what I say. A home where there are many boys and no girls is a jolly, healthy, happy household enough, but it lacks something, a gentler element, which the boys miss keenly, though they may not even be conscious of it. It is a great misfortune for boys to have no sisters, because in the family circle, where they grow up side by side, they acquire a knowledge of girl-nature which is invaluable to them when they begin to take an interest in that interesting personage, "another fellow's sister." And _vice versâ_--girls brought up in a brotherless home have no opportunity of studying boy-nature, and are apt to take a very prim, narrow view of the same. The ideal family is the one judiciously mixed, where boys and girls rub shoulders and carry on their little campaigns, entering into each other's pursuits and being chums all round. It is good for both. As I said before, girls, even in infancy, are more easily managed and reared than boys, the usual exceptions being allowed; and the same may be said of them as they grow older. They are more docile, more amenable to control, and their animal spirits, dependent on bodily organisation, are not usually so obstreperous. It is astonishing how soon a little girl becomes a companionable creature; she develops at a much earlier age than her brothers. Of course there are great differences. We have the tomboy, never still, more interested in her brothers' pranks than in the sober frolics of girls--dolls have no charm for her; yet the curious thing is that the tomboy has been known to develop into the extraordinarily successful wife and mother, her very energies of mind and body, when mellowed by experience, proving invaluable to her in her new sphere. I have often thought that an interesting article might be written on the place and power of dolls in the early life of women; it is such an interesting study to watch the different grades of interest taken in them by different children. To some they are real flesh and blood, treated as such, fondled over and considered quite as much as any living baby, invested with aches and pains, tempers and troubles, and subjected to a regular system of reward and punishment; while to others they are mere toys, which serve only to beguile the tedium of a rainy day. Then there are the few who regard them as mere objects for scorn and hatred; and when they do not ignore them, maltreat them mercilessly. The small girl who hates dolls, and dubs them as stupid things, is apt to be a little troublesome to amuse, though it is also quite possible that she may possess a very original mind, which strikes out a new path even in amusement for itself.