I know that I am playing with edged tools, advising an attempt that is all too apt to end in affectation, even in deceit, an overdone aspect of admiration which would disgust; but you can avoid that. Really, about all you need is to deal strictly with yourself as you walk down stairs to the parlor; force yourself to stop inwardly fuming that you are interrupted, to accept the fact that this is not an interruption, but probably a better occupation for you for twenty minutes than that from which you were called, at any rate the inexorable duty of the moment, and to be discharged as such. Instead of sitting half numb and self-absorbed, talking only in the _rôle_ of a machine for receiving a caller, try at once to throw yourself quite away from the life upstairs out into the life of your visitor. The calls will consume a little more of your time, will average a little longer, even in spite of waiting carriages, but they will prove a recreation instead of a weariness, and you will gain twenty friends where you now gain one. A little girl once traveled in the stage-coach with Madame La Vert, and the child’s indignant contradiction afterward: “She isn’t a fine lady at all! She’s just like me, and I love her,” made plain in a sentence the secret of her power. Why is not this sympathetic treatment of others aimed at by all? Why should the reigning belle be so nice with her tongue and her smile, and the older woman, who probably feels the want of affection far more keenly, be quite oblivious that this same winning kindliness which she has so long ceased to exhibit, and has replaced by the dry manner of formal endurance, would, perhaps as promptly as the wand of Cinderella’s god-mother, transform some of these prim callers into life-long friends. OUR LADIES OF SORROW. BY MRS. E. A. MATTHEWS. Three sisters guard the lives of mortal men With care unvarying, from youth to age. Ever around us, though beyond our ken, Do they in silent ministry engage. Mysterious Trio—hand in hand, they go Through the sad realm of human pain and woe! Mother of Tears, of bitterness, and grief, Thou art, to-day, in many a silent room— Before thy steps, death stealeth, like a thief, And turns life’s sunshine into blackest gloom. When hearts are rent with unavailing prayer For life’s lost treasures, Mother, thou art there! Dark-browed and dreadful, Tenebrarum, thou! Bringer of unbelief, doubt, and despair, Mother of suicide, revenge, and gloom— With frenzied look, and maniac’s awful glare— When man is hated, and when God denied, Thou standest, mocking, at the wretch’s side!