“Nina, I know, will love you; and if you never _try_ to advise her and influence her, you will influence her very much. Good people are a long while learning _that_, Anne. They think to do good to others by interfering and advising. They don’t know that all they have to do is to live.” * * * * * [Sidenote: Starting right.] It is only the first step that costs. LITTLE PUSSY WILLOW. [Sidenote: The right way to study.] “Knowledge has just been rubbed on to me upon the outside, while you have opened your mind, and stretched out your arms to it, and taken it in with all your heart.” A DOG’S MISSION. [Sidenote: The turning-point in life.] There is an age when the waves of manhood pour in on the boy like the tides in the Bay of Fundy. He does not know himself what to do with himself, and nobody else knows either; and it is exactly at this point that many a fine fellow has been ruined for want of faith and patience and hope in those who have the care of him. * * * * * [Sidenote: “What shall we do with Charley?”] But, after all, Charley is not to be wholly shirked, for he is an institution, a solemn and awful _fact_; and on the answer of the question, What is to be done with him? depends a future. Many a hard, morose, and bitter man has come from a Charley turned off and neglected; many a parental heartache has come from a Charley left to run the streets, that mamma and sisters might play on the piano and write letters in peace. It is easy to get rid of him—there are fifty ways of doing that—he is a spirit that can be promptly laid for a season, but if not laid aright, will come back by and by a strong man armed, when you cannot send him off at pleasure. Mamma and sisters had better pay a little tax to Charley now, than a terrible one by and by. There is something significant in the old English phrase, with which our Scriptures make us familiar,—a _man_ child! A _man_ child! There you have the word that should make you think more than twice before you answer the question, What shall we do with Charley? For to-day he is at your feet—to-day you can make him laugh; you can make him cry; you can persuade, and coax, and turn him to your pleasure; you can make his eyes fill and his bosom swell with recitals of good and noble deeds; in short, you can mold him, if you will take the trouble. But look ahead some years, when that little voice shall ring in deep bass tones; when that small foot shall have a man’s weight and tramp; when a rough beard shall cover that little round chin, and all the strength of manhood fill out that little form. Then, you would give worlds to have the key to his heart, to be able to turn and guide him to your will; but if you lose that key now he is little, you may search for it carefully with tears some other day, and not find it. Old housekeepers have a proverb that one hour lost in the morning is never found all day—it has a significance in this case.