should count it only a joy to minister once more to my darling boy,
cost what weariness it might.

But now new cares are at hand, and I have been searching for a person
to whom I can safely trust my children when I am laid aside. Thus far
I have had, in this capacity, three different Temptations in human
form.

The first, a smart, tidy-looking woman, informed me at the outset
that she was perfectly competent to take the whole charge of the
children, and should prefer my attending to my own affairs while she
attended to hers.

I replied that my affairs lay chiefly in caring for and being with my
children; to which she returned that she feared I should not suit
her, as she had her own views concerning the training of children.
She added, with condescension, that at all events she should expect
in any case of difference (of judgment)between us, that I, being the
younger and least experienced of the two, should always yield to her.
She then went on to give me her views on the subject of nursery
management.

"In the first place," she said, "I never pet or fondle children. It
makes them babyish and sickly."

"Oh, I see you will not suit me," I cried. "You need go no farther. I
consider love the best educator for a little child."

"Indeed, I think I shall suit you perfectly," she replied, nothing
daunted. "I have been in the business twenty years, and have always