All this should make you very patient and gentle with old people. There is nothing more beautiful in this world than to observe the tenderness of some girls toward their aged relatives. Dear grandmother cannot thread her needles so easily as she used to do, and is sensitive on the subject; and does not like to be too obviously helped, to have attention called to her failing eye-sight, which she so much regrets and does not like to admit. There are two ways of meeting the difficulty. Mattie, a kind-hearted girl without much tact, will exclaim: "Oh, gran! what perfect nonsense for you to fuss over that needle! You know you cannot find the hole where the thread should go in; your eyes are too old. Give me the thing; I'll thread your needles!" The intention is most excellent, but the old lady is hurt and stifles a sigh. She had young eyes once, and she has the same independent spirit still. Edith, in the same circumstances, manages in another fashion. She simply threads a dozen needles, and leaves them all ready for grandmamma in her needle-book, saying, pleasantly, "It saves so much time, dear, in these busy days, to have one's needles all ready and waiting." Tact is a wonderful gift, girls, and well worth cultivating when it will help to make a saddened heart light, or to oil the domestic wheels and make them run smoothly.
Whatever you do, never suffer yourselves, girls, to show irritation or amusement at the foibles of an old lady or gentleman. One is as hard to bear as the other. The sweet girl who is thoughtful for and deferent in manner to the old people she meets wins the love and admiration of every one.
One rather peculiar thing about very old people is a failure of memory. They tell you a story to-day, and to-morrow they forget that they told it, and tell it over again. Now it really is not very hard to listen with a patient air and with interest to a tale you have heard before; it may be done, and it is worth the doing, if it adds a little pleasure to lives which are not as full of strength and cheerfulness as your own are.
Margaret E. Sangster.
RECALLED STORMY TIMES.
"Well, that looks natural," said the old soldier, looking at a can of condensed milk on the breakfast-table in place of ordinary milk that failed on account of the storm. "It's the Gail Borden Eagle Brand we used during the war."—[Adv.]