How soon does this trouble of youth begin? That very delightful little person, the Baby, is quite exempted. So, too, are the three, four, and five-year-old darlings of the nursery. They gather on your knee, and take possession of you, and make no doubt at all of your love or their deserts. But a child cannot always get out of the nursery before this doubt with two faces is upon him. I know a boy of four, a healthy intelligent child, full of glee and frolic and sense, who yet has many sad moments because one and another do not love him, and other very joyful, grateful moments because some little gift or attention assures him of love. His mother, with the delicate tact mothers have, perceives that the child needs to be continually reinstated in his own esteem. She calls him her “only boy,” treats him half as her little lover, and so evens him with the two bright little sisters whom, somehow, and without any telling, poor Georgie feels to be sweeter in temper and more lovable than he. An exceedingly instructive little memorial of a child who died young came under our notice some time ago. His parents kept their children always in an atmosphere of love and gladness; and it was curious to notice that this boy, a merry, bright little fellow, was quite incapable of realising his parents’ love. That they should love his sister was natural, but how _could_ they love him? The little ones in the nursery revel in love, but how is it with even the nursery elders? Are they not soon taught to give place to the little ones and look for small show of love, because they are “big boys” and “big girls”? The rather sad aloofness and self-containedness of these little folk in some families is worth thinking about. Even the nursery is a microcosm, suffering from the world’s ailment, love-hunger, a sickness which drives little children and grown-up people into naughty thoughts and wicked ways.