It matters not that Mrs. A.’s household resembles a snug nest of chirping birdlings, who lie all the warmer for being obliged to stow a little closely; who learn patience and loving-kindness and generosity by hourly practice of these graces upon one another, without being aware that any lessons are set for them--they come so naturally; who never lack company or sympathy, by reason of the abundance of home companions and home love; who bid fair to keep their parents’ name long alive upon the earth, and, in their own maturity, to transmit to an extended circle--to a large community--it may be to a whole nation, the principles taught them at their mother’s knees and from their father’s lips. It signifies little to the feminine cabal that each one of the little B.’s has been, for seven long weary years, that most forlorn and pitiable of juvenile specimens--an only baby; has become dwarfed in affections; narrowed as to ability to love and to enter into the feelings of other children; thoroughly, and often incorrigibly selfish; and when, at last, the lustrum being accomplished, the newer infant is ushered into the world, the older regards it with dire distrust and lurking jealousy, if not avowed dislike, as the usurper of his or her hitherto undisputed rights. “My children will never be companions for one another; they are so far apart!” sighs Mrs. B., as the pert Miss of fourteen pronounces the tiny sister, who has not numbered as many hours of existence, “a regular bore!” and “wonders why she came. Nobody wants her; and it is too provoking to have a baby in the house just as one is beginning to go into society, and wants a good deal of gay company.” But Mrs. Grundy--an American Mrs. Grundy, you may be sure, with a dash of Parisian philosophy--has declared the one matron to be a broken-down druge, a domestic slave--“quite behind the times, in fact!” while “Mrs. B. is a truly fortunate and”--here Mrs. Grundy whispers--“a very enlightened and judicious lady!” What an odious savor in Mrs. G.’s delicate nostrils would be the antiquated but pious friend who should, out of the plenitude of his love and good will for Mr. Grundy, pray, in the words of the Psalmist, that his wife might be a fruitful vine, and his children olive plants round about his table!