professionally called upon to love me; and I feel it is absurd that it should be a factor in my opinion of her real worth that she should forget to pour out my tea, so busy is she haranguing me in a dictatorial and unsmiling manner. I ought to remember that she would hold a cup of water to the lips of a pauper more tenderly than a cup of tea to mine. I ought to remind myself that the manner so displeasing to me has been acquired when exhorting and instructing some less favoured by fortune than I, whose horizon she may thus incalculably have widened. And yet I confess that I find myself wondering if it would not have been possible for her to combine both forms of excellence, and to be deferential, courteous, solicitously hospitable to the well-to-do, as well as helpful and admirable towards the badly off; and why, when great and noble ideals of conduct were being placed before her, some of the minor graces of demeanour should not as a matter of course have been imparted as well.

It is foolish that we should in our intercourse with a fellow-creature be biassed by superficial deficiencies, and thus lose sight of essential excellencies. But we are foolish, most of us—that fact we must accept, however much we should like to think otherwise; and if we honestly search our experience and our memories, we shall realise how much we are liable to be influenced by things which appear insignificant, we shall recall how slight an incident has sometimes produced an unfavourable impression that is never wholly erased. I remember an instance of this which struck me very vividly. A septuagenarian of dignity and position, Sir X. Y., happened to meet at a public gathering Mr. Z., another magnate of his own standing, full of years and worth. Mr. Z. was anxious to enlist Sir X. Y.'s interest in a certain scheme, and to obtain his co-operation and pecuniary support. And he would doubtless have succeeded, for Sir X. Y., an urbane old man, albeit with a clear con

sciousness of his own deserts, was entirely well disposed, and advanced with outstretched hand to meet Mr. Z. with cordiality. But, alas at that moment Mr. Z. happened to see some one else by whom his attention was suddenly diverted, and, all unwitting of his crime, he shook hands with Sir X. Y. without looking at him, thereby losing in that one moment of thoughtlessness the goodwill of his interlocutor, his kindly interest, and his possible help. Mr. Z. had almost certainly been taught in his youth always to give his right hand instead of his left when shaking hands with people, and he had probably learnt it so thoroughly that it would never have occurred to him to do anything else. But he had apparently not been taught also to look his interlocutor in the face at the same time, as if it gave him pleasure to meet him. And yet this supplementary ordinance might have been just as easily and thoroughly taught as the first rule, if it had occurred

to any one that it was necessary and advisable to teach it. We could all of us, probably, cite many instances of the same kind. Mrs. A. and Mr. B. being both interested in a certain school, Mrs. A. went to see Mr. B. to discuss with him some point in the management of it. Suddenly Mr. B. caught sight of an open letter lying on the table in front of him, and he took it up and looked mechanically through it as she spoke. The result was, that although he was in reality more than willing to meet Mrs. A.'s wishes about the school, his manner quite unintentionally produced a feeling of unreasoning resentment in her, and she was far more angry with him for agreeing inattentively with her views than she would have been if he had differed from them after listening to her attentively and courteously. All this means an absolutely unnecessary expenditure of energy. Mrs. A., being given the wrong bias at the beginning of the interview, was then annoyed with herself for being

annoyed with Mr. B.: the irritation in her manner communicated itself to his, according to a law of nature as definitely ascertained as that of the propagation of the waves in the ether, and the question they had met to discuss was settled with an incalculable amount of friction, which might have been entirely avoided. It arose purely from Mr. B.'s defective training in manners. He had probably been taught as a definite precept of conduct in his youth, obeyed ever since. quite unconsciously without a separate effort of will or intention, to get up when a lady entered his room, and not to sit down with his back to her afterwards; but it would have been well for him if he had also been taught not morally to turn his back upon her by reading a letter while she was speaking to him of something else. This is one of the most exasperating and most prevalent forms of bad manners, and one which reappears in an infinite variety of shapes. Mrs. E. went one day to see