Almost more touching than the trustfulness of children is their extraordinary endurance--a quality often, I fear, carried to a painful and even dangerous point. It has its root, I suspect, in their innate trust, their belief that whatever their elders deem right must be so; also perhaps, in a certain almost fatalistic acceptance of things as they are. But on few subjects connected with childhood have I felt more strongly than on this. No parent is justified in “taking for granted” the moral qualifications, even the suitability of the persons in charge of their little boys and girls, however unexceptionable may be the references and recommendations they bring. It takes tact and gives trouble, but it is among the first of the duties of mothers especially to make sure on such points for themselves. For besides their trust in their elders and their natural resignation to the conditions about them, there is an extreme sense of loyalty in most children, a horror of “tell-taling,” such as are often far too slightly appreciated or taken into account. As these remarks are professedly a “ramble” I may be forgiven for reverting to that beautiful trustfulness, by relating an incident which, though trivial in the extreme, has never faded from my memory. We were returning, late at night, or so at least it seemed to me, from some kind of juvenile entertainment at Christmas time. It was a stormy evening; I was a very little girl, and since infancy, high wind has always frightened me, and that night it was blowing fiercely. I was already trembling, when the carriage suddenly stopped. My father at once sprang out, for there was no second man on the box; there was nothing wrong, only the coachman’s hat had blown off! He got down and ran back for it, and my father replaced him and drove on slowly, for the wind had made the horse restless. “Oh, mamma,” I exclaimed, “I am so frightened. The coachman has gone away.” “Yes, darling,” said my mother, “but don’t you see papa is driving?” I shall never forget the impression of absolute comfort and fearlessness that came over me at her words. “Papa is driving,” I repeated to myself. “We are quite, quite safe.” And all through the many years since that winter night, the impression has never faded; often and often it has returned to me as a suggestion of the essential beauty of trust, the germ of the “perfect love” towards which we strive. Not _a propos_ of the foregoing reminiscences, yet not, I hope, _mal a propos_ in a roundabout paper, two anecdotes of a different kind, of children, recur to me, showing the odd directions that their cogitations sometimes take.