My friend, though quite practical, loved dearly to wander in the higher regions of thought. Such an one is apt to suffer for the want of sympathy, and situated as she was in an obscure inland town, where living literature was unappreciated and congenial companionship did not exist, her first year of married life was not all that she had anticipated. Her husband was “_all business_,” but he wanted his wife to be happy, and he induced her to send for an old schoolmate “for company.” After Miss Wood’s arrival there was no time for morbid regrets or dissatisfaction. She brought a year’s later news of the old circle of friends, was full of piquant personal reminiscence, could discuss the merits of the latest noteworthy literature, and entered heartily into the political reform movements of England and Italy. The days were now only too short for the duties and sympathy that had to be crowded into them. After the birth of Mrs. Roche’s first child her friend married, and moved on to a farm some miles away. Mrs. R. had more domestic occupation, but a close communication was kept up. Then the anti-slavery agitation was beginning to be felt all over the country, and Mr. R., to his wife’s great delight, flung himself with all his compact executive energy into it. During this period another child, a girl, was born. Suddenly and unexpectedly business losses occurred, which obliged a removal to a new place. “It so happened,” said Mrs. R., referring long years later to the marked difference in her children, “that the months before Cecil’s birth, I met with no book or person that appealed to me, and I was always so helplessly dependent on outside influences when I was _enciente_. The dear boy, in his early youth, gave evidence of the absence of the speculative intellect. He hates discussion and theories of every sort. Philosophy is his abomination. The day is good enough for him without analysis. He likes a fine poem, and adores Ruskin, and his order and system make him invaluable to his father. But in comprehensiveness, in capacity for ideas, he ranks far below his brother and his sister.” INTEMPERANCE. In the preceding pages I have endeavored to show what manner of living favors the transmission of noble and beautiful qualities from mother to child; what conditions tend to produce unbalanced, vicious, unlovely character. I have dwelt principally on the moral aspects of maternity, because that is the side hitherto overlooked. But I can not close without saying a word respecting the baleful influence of intoxicating drinks. Nothing is more certain than that the desire for alcoholic drinks is inherited, and all degrees of mental dullness and incapacity, from one grade below the parental endowment, to idiocy, may be distinctly referred to habits of intoxication.