Another class of influences under which a child will necessarily come is that of social relations. For the most part, children are made too much of a show. They are taught—or allowed—certain little mannerisms which, at their age, are called charming, but, if looked at by the light of common sense, are simply as absurd as they are forward. Later on, when they begin to use their reason, they are often listeners to frivolous or scandalous conversations, in which they pick up, if not a half-knowledge of vice, certainly a whole love of gossip. Now, all this is deplorable from a Christian point of view. In a really Christian home—a home such as we aspire to see at least in every Catholic family—the case would be very different. Entertainments and fêtes would be judiciously “few and far between,” and in its mother’s visitors the child would see only fresh objects of its mother’s charitable tact. If anything against charity were said, the hostess would gently check the conversation, either by palliating the fault alluded to, suggesting a better motive than the apparent one concerning any person implicated, or turning the conversation skilfully to some less dangerous topic. Those formal visits, made to kill time or otherwise uselessly, would have no part in her day’s programme, and with ever charitable but firm demeanor would she effectually check the frequent demands thus made upon her time by others. The child, quick of perception, as almost all children are, would be unconsciously moulded to habits of orderly and discriminating hospitality, and would soon learn to do something for God in every social pastime which it legitimately enjoyed.