SAYING GOOD-NIGHT TO MOTHER.
I WAS once spending the night in a large city. At about nine o’clock my host, a gentleman of about fifty-eight years of age, got up, went out in the hall, and put on his overcoat and rubbers. Returning to the parlor, he said:— “Excuse me, please, for just a few minutes. I am going to say good-night to mother.” His mother lived three blocks distant, and for thirty years her son had never failed to go and bid her good-night if he was at home. “No matter what the weather may be, no matter who his guests are, my husband never fails to run over to his mother’s and bid her good-night,” said the gentleman’s wife, when he had gone. “Neither he nor she could sleep, if this duty had been neglected. When his business compels him to be away from the city, he writes to her every day, if only a single line. Her mental powers are beginning to fail, and she forgets many things, so that her mind is blank on some points; but when nine o’clock comes, she always knows the hour, and says: ‘It is time for Henry to come and bid me good-night.’”—Selected.