“And how nervous you have grown, Annette!” she said. “You crush everything you take hold of.” “What have I crushed, mamma?” asked the daughter, with a light laugh. “Have I made havoc among your bonnets or wine‐glasses?” “It isn’t that,” Mrs. Ferrier said fretfully. “You squeeze people’s hands, instead of touching them. Look at that baby’s arm!” They were entertaining a baby visitor. Annette Gerald looked as she was bid and saw the prints of her fingers on the soft little arm she had held unconsciously, and caught an only half‐ subsided quiver of the baby lip as the little one looked at her, all ready to cry with pain. Every woman knows at once how she atoned for her fault, by what caresses, and petting, and protestations of sorrow, and how those faint red marks were bemoaned as if they had been the stripes of a martyr. “If you touch any one’s arm, you pinch it,” the elder lady went on. “And you take hold of your shawl and your gloves and your handkerchief as if somebody were going to pull them away from you. I’ve seen your nails white when you held the evening paper to read, you gripped it so; and as to taking glasses and cups at the table, I always expect to see them fly to pieces in your hands.” “Isn’t she an awful woman?” says Mrs. Annette to the baby, holding it high and looking up into its rosy, smiling face. “Isn’t Annette a frightfully muscular and dangerous person, you pink of perfection? What shall we do with her? She pinches little swan’s‐down arms, and makes angelic babies pucker up their lips with grief, and sets tears swimming in their blue violets of eyes. We must do something dreadful to her. We must forgive her; and that is very terrible. There is nothing so crushing, baby, as to be forgiven very much.” And then, after one more toss, the infant was let suddenly and softly down, like a lapful of roses, over the face of its friend, and for an instant Annette Gerald’s eyes were hidden in its neck. “Come and have a game of chess, Annette,” her husband called out across the room. “Yes, dear!” she responded brightly; and, setting the child down, went to him at once, a red color in her cheeks. “Why do some people always notice such little things,” he said frowningly, “and, instead of attending to themselves, watch how people take hold of cups and saucers, and all that nonsense, and fancy that some wonderful chance hangs on your eating butter with your bread, or preferring cheese?” Annette was engaged in placing the men, and did not look in her husband’s face as she answered in a gentle, soothing voice: “It is rather annoying sometimes, but I find the best way is to treat the whole jestingly. If one shows vexation, it looks serious. But you can ridicule a person out of hanging mountains by threads.” He was going to answer, when something made him notice her face. The color was still bright there, but the cheeks were hollow, and dark circles had sunk beneath her eyes.