and certainly not unhappy, obedience from his son. But business
interests and responsibilities were large and the bracing tonic of his
association with the boy was all too passing to put much blood-
richness into the pallor of the child's developing character.
Moreover, this intermittent helpfulness was more than counteracted by
the mother's disloyal, though unconscious dishonesty. Hers was an
open, if need be a furtive, overattention and overstimulation, an
inveterate surrender to the sweet tyranny of her son's childish whims.
There was probably nothing malicious in her many little plans which
kept the father out of the nursery and ignorant of much of their boy's
tutelage. The mother was only repeating fully in principle, and
largely in detail, her own rearing; and had she not "turned out to be
one of the favored few?"

The suburban special went into a crash, and all that a fine father
might have done through future years to neutralize the unwholesome
training of a nervous mother was lost. In fact, her power for harm was
now multiplied. The large properties and business were hers through
life, and with husband gone, and so tragically, there was increased
opportunity, and unquestionably more reason, for the intensification
of her motherly care. So the fate of a fine man's son is left in the
hands of a servile mother.

It now became a home of restrained extravagance. The table was fairly
smothered with rare and rich foods. Fine wines and imported liquors
entered into sauces and seasonings. The boy's playroom was a veritable
toy-shop, with its hundreds of useless and unused playthings. Long
before any capacity for understanding enjoyment had come, this
unfortunate child had lost all love for the simple. With Mrs. Abbott,
it was always "the best that money can buy"--unwittingly, the worst