As they grow older the sympathy and love you show for them when you deliberately put aside your book, and read to them some childish story, or bit of adventure, will never be forgotten. No wise man or woman ever loses interest in children’s stories. If they are worth your _children’s_ reading, they are worth _your_ reading. It lies in the power of every parent to fashion their children’s taste in literature. Choose wisely, for the matter is an important one. Do not make the mistake so often made of thinking that any child’s book is good enough for the children. This is not true. There is as wide a difference in children’s books as in books for adults. With all the delightful writers for the little ones, there is no need of reading trashy things to the children. Your children’s libraries will be an index of your literary taste, and your highest care for them. Books are companions, and should be chosen as wisely as you would choose their associates. How in this day of public schools and free American loving democracy, can I choose my children’s companions? Ah; but you can, dear mother. Train them so wisely, get the love of all that is good so instilled into their beings, fix so surely the hatred of evil, that they will instinctively choose companions worthy of them. Be kind to all, but do not make close friends or companions of any but those who are good. Occasionally a wolf in sheep’s clothing will be met, and you will need great tact to lead your child to see the falseness of character, and to get away from it ere the influence has been hazardous. Let me illustrate. A grown up boy fifteen or sixteen said one day to his mother, “Mamma, some of the boys are going down to the Gardens to-night after school, and may I go with them?” “What is there to see and enjoy, son?” “Oh I hardly know, but the boys say there’s lots of fun.” The mother gave her consent, all the while knowing she would not have chosen the Gardens as a suitable place for her boy to find amusement. When he came home from school to leave his books, he found his mother all ready to go out. “Where are you going, mamma?” asked the boy. “I thought I would go with you, son, I have never been there and I thought I would like to enjoy it with you.” “But mamma, I don’t know as it is a good place for you to go to.” “Oh, don’t trouble about that, son, any place that you care to visit is suitable for your mother.”