Hospitality to Children's Friends.
I KNOW that children's company is apt to make some trouble to a home mother; but it is the kind of trouble that pays. It makes children so much happier to have their little friends made welcome at their own home. It raises mother in their esteem to have other little folks think she is "nice." Children are sharp little critics—form their opinions and speak of them to others quite as decidedly as their elders do. A little girl who had displeased her mother was "punished" by having her little playmate sent home with sharp and angry words, which were entirely unmerited. The heart of the little visitor was greatly shocked at the rude blow to her spirit, and never, to even grown-up years, could look at that woman except with aversion. She was an excellent woman in the main, but she had her "cross" spells, like some others we may know. Everybody appears at their worst when such spells are on. It is an excellent thing to know with whom your children play, and how they deport themselves. If they are made welcome at your home, you have the very best opportunity of gaining this information. It need not be very irksome if you keep the number within bounds. In summer our little visitors like to sit with their playthings in the shady porch, or in the doorway. In the cold weather they can have the warm dining-room. If disposed to run over the house, it is sufficient to say, decidedly, "Don't run upstairs, please; just play in the dining-room"—and I have never known a child to disregard the request. It is worth a great deal to make children happy. They remember little treats longer than we suppose. A lady once said that one of the pleasantest recollections of her childhood was sitting on a grassy bank, and of a fair hand reaching from a window and placing a handful of large delicious strawberries in her lap. I often set out a plate of sandwiches, cookies, apples, or whatever is handiest in the pantry, and then let the little girls arrange them to suit themselves on their sprigged tea-set. A little coffee, sugar, and milk in their small dishes make their happiness complete. Be a lady to your boys' friends, and leave a good impression upon them if you wish to retain the respect of your own dear boy. It hurts boys' feelings and mortifies them intensely to have mother speak snappishly to them before companions, making them feel that they are not wanted. Such boys are apt to wander away, with most resentful feelings, to seek such company as the mother would dread to have for their associates. But whom should she blame most for it?—Rural New Yorker.