CHAPTER XXIX.

A Chat About Photographs.

REMEMBER very well when daguerreotypes and ambrotypes first came in. They were the predecessors of the photographs which are now so common and which have been brought to such wonderful perfection. The first sun-pictures, as we called them, were enclosed in little leather cases, and the centre-tables of those days, way back in the forties, used to be adorned with piles of these little embossed cases which were among the precious possessions of every family.

By swift degrees these pictures were superseded as the fine art of the camera was better understood. During the war we had the little carte de visite, as well as the imperial photograph, and many times as the soldiers sat by the camp-fires and read the letters which came from home out from among the folds would drop the pretty little picture sent by a sweetheart, wife or sister, or maybe it would be the baby's picture for her father to see and to notice how she had grown since he went away.

In these times almost everybody can afford to have pictures taken often, and our boys and girls carry kodaks and have great success in taking likenesses of those they love and beautiful interiors. Wherever one can do it, it is well to have frequent pictures taken of children, for these darlings of the home change a great many times as they grow up, and it is interesting to watch the development, both of body and mind, as the little rosy, dimpled baby face changes to the older countenance of school-boy or school-girl, and then as that gives place to the look of the youth or maiden, and finally as the face takes on the beauty of maturity.

Nothing is a more interesting or welcome keepsake to send to a friend away from home than a picture of one's self or of some member ofthe family. Always an acceptable Christmas or birthday gift, one may be sure of making no mistake in thus remembering a friend; and when the cost of the ordinary photograph is compared with that of almost any other gift, it is really trifling.

In sitting for a picture one should remember that it is not so much the dress and costume which are to be seized and put upon the background of the picture as the expression of the face. A plain every-day gown often takes better than a more elaborate toilette, and often people sacrifice real beauty and successful effect in a desire to show off a handsome new gown. The hair should be a little rough,

rather than too smooth, and should be arranged in a natural way. The artist who takes the picture can usually tell what colors are most becoming, and it is always a good plan to ask advice if you are anxious to have the photograph particularly good.

Looking over an old photograph album some years after the pictures have been taken one is very much struck with the swiftly changing fashions. For this reason do not have your picture taken in a bonnet or hat, unless you expect after a while to have it appear very old-fashioned. Be a little conservative as to wearing anything in the extreme of fashion. A standing position is as a rule less desirable than one in which you are seated naturally in a chair as you would be in every day life.

There is an amusing poem by Lewis Carroll which describes Hiawatha, a wandering photographer, taking an English family group. Each member of the family is determined to pose, and from the father, who strikes an attitude holding a roll of paper in his hand, and the mother, who is determined to have a big bouquet shown prominently, down to the youngest member of the group, a sturdy freckled boy, each person is so determined to produce an effect that the result is entire disappointment, except in the case of the boy, who, not caring how he looks, looks pretty well. A pretty effect is sometimes produced by a drapery of lace over a high comb, or by a soft scarf of liberty silk brought loosely around the shoulders.

Miniature painting has become very popular during recent years, and I have seen some beautiful old pictures reproduced successfully in this way. A young girl with artistic taste, if she can secure the necessary training, can make an excellent livelihood by painting miniatures; and women have succeeded remarkably in photography when undertaking it as a business. They seem unusually skillful in arranging details and in catching likenesses, and the whole business is well adapted to womanly taste, and comes well within the round of occupations most congenial to the gentler sex.

An Episode in Child Life.

Our delightful New England romancer, Mary E. Wilkins, in a charming story about children-“ Mehitabel Lamb" is its title-has a sketch showing the curious reticence and martyrlike fortitude possible in a very young child; showing also the ease with which grown people may blunder in their dealings with children whom they love very tenderly. Mehitabel, a little dimpled girl who still plays with her doll, has been solemnly bound over to an older girl not to tell a certain thing. "I s'pose," says Hannah Maria, "you'll go right straight home, and tell my mother just as quick as you can get there."

Mehitabel said nothing.

46

'You'll be an awful telltale, if you do."

"Shan't tell," said Mehitabel in a sulky voice.

"Will you promise, Honest and true, black and blue, lay me down and cut me in two,' that you won't tell?"

The child promised, repeating the gibberish over after her friend. From that moment until the next morning her little life enters into a cloud of misery

and wrath.

For Hannah Maria has started to walk to her Uncle Timothy's, supposing it merely a little way up the road, and it is five miles, and when she reaches the place her uncle and aunt keep her all night, and her parents are distracted, and the town rouses itself to go in search of the lost child, and the well is dragged, and little Mehitabel is scolded and punished and drenched with bitter thoroughwort tea, and makes no sign. A Christian martyr of the first century could have shown no more invincible courage than the poor baby whose

mother whips her for the first time in her life, but who would have died sooner than tell that she knew that Hannah Maria Green had set out to walk to her Uncle Timothy's.

Reading this plain little story the other day, I was struck anew by its insight; and again, as often before, I was impressed with the singular color-blindness of many grown-up people with regard to the mental processes of children, with the astonishing lack of comprehension which is displayed by many parents in their intercourse with their beloved little ones. I am not sure that even now, when a wave of interest in what is termed "child-culture" has swept over the land, children will be very much the gainers. There is the danger that we will treat our delicate small girls and boys as the botanist treats the flower he wishes to analyze; that before our ruthless scrutiny and our rigid search-lights the sweetest thing in childhood, its unconsciousness of self, will disappear.

The whole duty of children in the old days is epitomized by Robert Louis Stevensen in his " Child Garden of Verse ":

"A child should always say what's true,
And speak when he is spoken to;

And behave mannerly at table

At least as far as he is able."

Much more than this, which is elemental and simple, is required of our little ones to-day, and the peril is that while we are requiring so much of them and of ourselves, we shall forget that after all the thing is not so complex.

"Suffer the children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven," said our blessed Lord.

We suffer the little ones to come when we so bring them up that our homes are full of the love-light from above; when we do not comment on their faults in their presence, nor on their remarkable attainments either. To make a child's own performances of any sort the theme of conversation before the child is most injudicious. We must often leave to time and nature passing phases of child-life, knowing that some developments which give us anxiety will drop away from the unfolding life, and be seen no more. We must remember-alas, we too often forget--that childhood is a period of imitation, and that our example, our life lived purely and sincerely, our high-mindedness or our low ideals, will surely tell, and tell as vitally in the end as the process is imperceptible, upon the child's welfare and character for two worlds.

And, mothers, whatever else you leave undone, do not cease to pray much for the children whom God has given you. For as you pray, you will receive help straight from that heaven where "their angels do always behold the face of our father."

CHAPTER XXX.

The Kiss Deferred.

WO little cousins once there were-
Mary Ann and Mary Jane;
The first one lived in Boston town,
The second down in Maine.
(But as the town of Boston stood
So very far from Maine,

The cousins yet had never met,
Which caused them much pain.)

And Jane she wrote a little note:

"Dear cousin"-thus wrote she-
'Dear Cousin Ann, I've made a plan
That you should visit me;

For you are the one, the Ann unknown,
I've always longed to see.

They say that you have eyes deep blue,

And a face all lily fair,

While round your face, with many a grace,

Doth curl your golden hair.

Now I, they say, have eyes of gray,

And the puggiest little nose,

A little round chin with a dimple in,

And cheeks as red as a rose.

Let me tell you this, that I'm saving a kiss,

And a dear good hugging too,

For the cousin so fair with the golden hair,
And the eyes so brightly blue.

So pray, dear Ann, come if you can,
And bring your dolly, dear;

My dollies all, both great and small,
Will make her welcome here.