Things

								


IN SIMILAR FORM
16mo, Boards, net 50c. Leather, net $1.00

Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
The Perfect Tribute
The Lifted Bandage
The Courage of the Commonplace
The Counsel Assigned
Maltbie Davenport Babcock
The Success of Defeat
Katharine Holland Brown
The Messenger
Richard Harding Davis
The Consul
Marion Harland
Looking Westward
Robert Herrick
The Master of the Inn
Frederick Landis
The Angel of Lonesome Hill
Francis E. Leupp
A Day with Father
Alice Duer Miller
Things
Robert Louis Stevenson
A Christmas Sermon
Prayers Written at Vailima
Aes Triplex
Isobel Strong
Robert Louis Stevenson
Henry van Dyke
School of Life
The Spirit of Christmas

THINGS

  THINGS


BY
Alice Duer Miller


Author of “The Blue Arch,” “Calderon’s
Prisoner,” etc.


NEW YORK
Charles Scribner’s Sons
1914

Copyright, 1914, by Charles Scribner’s Sons
Published April, 1914
THINGS

THINGS

I

The great alienist sat down at his desk, and having emptied his mind
of all other impressions, held it up like a dipper for his new patient
to fill. Large, blond, and handsome, she was plainly accustomed to
being listened to. Before she had fairly undone her furs and folded her
hands within her muff, the doctor’s lateral vision had told him that,
whatever her problems, it was not about her own nervous system that she
had come to consult him.
Not too quickly her story began to take shape. Her household, her
husband, her four children--three small boys and an older daughter, a
girl of seventeen....
“My only thought has been my children, Dr. Despard.”
“Your only thought, Mrs. Royce?”
She assented. The daughter was the problem--the daughter of seventeen.
“She and I have been such friends; I have always been a friend to my
children, I hope, as well as a parent. And Celia’s little arrangements,
her clothes and her small parties, have been as much my interests as
hers--more, perhaps. The bond between us has been peculiarly close
until the last year or so. Lately a rebellious spirit has begun to
develop. I have tried to make allowances, but naturally there are
certain questions of manners and deportment--small but important--about
which one cannot yield. I am almost ashamed to confess how
unaffectionate are the terms that we have reached. The situation will
strike you as a strange one between a mother and daughter----”
He shook his head. “You are by no means the only mother and daughter
whose relations are unsatisfactory.”
“Ah, the young people of to-day!” she sighed. “What is the
matter with them, with the age, Dr. Despard? They are so hard, so
individualistic. I myself was one of a large family, and we lived in
the house with my grandparents and aunts. My life was made up of little
duties for older people--duties I never thought of questioning. They