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"I've often wished I had your firmness, Jane: but, after all, I'm not sure that I don't like my own way best, at least with my boys; for plenty of love, and plenty of patience, seem to have succeeded pretty well;" and Aunt Jessie lifted the nosegay from her lap, feeling as if that unfailing love and patience were already blooming into her life, as beautifully as the sweet-breathed roses given by her boy refreshed and brightened these long hours of patient waiting in a corner.

"I don't deny that you've done well, Jessie; but you've been let alone, and had no one to hold your hand or interfere. If my Mac had gone to sea as your Jem did, I never should have been as severe as I am. Men are so perverse and short-sighted, they don't trouble about the future as long as things are quiet and comfortable in the present," continued Mrs. Jane, quite forgetting that the short-sighted partner of the firm, physically speaking at least, was herself.

"Ah, yes! we mothers love to foresee and foretell our children's lives even before they are born, and are very apt to be disappointed if they do not turn out as we planned. I know I am: yet I really have no cause to complain, and am learning to see that all we can do is to give the dear boys good principles, and the best training we may, then leave them to finish what we have begun;" and Mrs. Jessie's eye wandered away to Archie, dancing with Rose, quite unconscious what a pretty little castle in the air tumbled down when he fell in love with Phebe.