The typical mother-in-law is, as we all know, fair game for every one's satire; and according to the odd notions which prevail on certain points, a man is assumed to show his love for his wife by systematic disrespect to her mother, and to think that her new affections will be knit all the closer the more loosely he can induce her to hold her old ones. The mother-in-law, according to this view of things, has every fault. She interferes, and always at the wrong time and on the wrong side; she makes a tiff into a quarrel and widens a coolness into a breach; she is self-opinionated and does not go with the times; she treats her daughter like a child and her son-in-law like an appendage; she spoils the elder children and feeds the baby with injudicious generosity; she spends too much on her dress, wears too many rings, trumps her partner's best card and does not attend to the 'call;'--and she is fat. But even the well abused mother-in-law--the portly old dowager who has had her day and is no longer pleasing in the eyes of men--even she has her wrongs like most of us; and if she sometimes asserts her rights more aggressively than patiently, she has to put up with many disagreeable rubs for her own part; and female tempers over fifty are not notorious for humility. Take the case of a widow with means, whose family is settled. Not a daughter to chaperone, not a son to marry; all are so far happily off her hands, and she is left alone. But what does her loneliness mean? In the first place, while her grief for her husband is yet new--and we will assume that she does grieve for him--she has to turn out of the house where she has been queen and mistress for the best years of her life; to abdicate state and style in favour of her son and her son's wife whom she is sure not to like; and, however good her jointure may be, she must necessarily find her new home one of second-rate importance. Perhaps however, the family objects to her having a home of her own. Dear mamma must give up housekeeping and divide her time among them all; but specially among her daughters, being more likely to get on well with their husbands than with her sons' wives.