chance, would care to strike the bread from the hand of one of these?
Ask God that the scales of unconscious selfishness may fall from your
eyes. Look about you and see if there is not some duty, however small,
the more irksome the better, that you may take from your mother's daily
load, some service you can render for father, brother, sister, aunt;
some daily household task, so small you may feel contemptuous of it,
yet some one must do it, and it may be a special thorn in that some
one's side. So surely as you force yourself to do the small things
nearest your hand, so surely will you be called upon for greater
service."

And oh! my dears, my dears, a loving mother's declaration, "I don't know
what I should do without my daughter," is sweeter and more precious than
the careless applause of strangers. Try, then, to be patient; find some
occupation, if it is nothing more than the weekly putting in order of
bureau drawers for some unusually careless member of the family; and,
having a good home, thank God and your parents, and stay in it.

And now, having added the insult of preaching at you to the injury of
disappointing you, I suppose you will accuse me of rank hypocrisy; but
you will be wrong, because with outstretched hands I stand and proclaim
myself your well-wisher and your friend.




_CHAPTER II

THE STAGE AND REAL LIFE_