CHAPTER XXXVI.
FOUR-FEET-UPON-A-FENDER.
It is the sisterly heart rather than the author's fancy that gives me as a companion in this, the last of these "Familiar Talks," the typical American house-mother.
Whatever the alleged subject discussed in former chapters--and each has borne more or less directly upon the leading theme, old yet never trite,--THE SECRET OF A HAPPY HOME,--I have had in heart and imagination this thin, nervous, intense creature whom I seat beside me.

Her own hands have made her neat; the same hands and far more care than ever goes to the care of herself make and keep her home neat and comfortable.
The dying Queen of England gasped that after her death there would be found stamped upon her heart the name of the Calais lost to her kingdom in her reign.

Our housewife carries her household forever bound upon her heart of hearts.

The word is the hall mark upon every endeavor and achievement.

It would be a poor recompense for a life of patient toil to convince her that she has wrought needlessly; that the same energy devoted to other objects would have made a nobler woman of her and the world better and happier.