Too many girls are inclined to think themselves martyrs some time in their lives. The fancy for believing that they are ill-treated and misunderstood at home is a common expression of this martyrdom, and to the girl-friend this story of suffering is told with the keenest sort of pleasure. Now the suffering may consist in the fact that the martyr (?), after lounging all day reading a volume of poetry, was asked to take care of the baby for awhile, as nurse was busy in the kitchen, and mother must go down and see a visitor. And the martyr holds the baby carelessly, and the poor little tot cries because it is uncomfortable, while the happy victim of sixteen, who really enjoys her trouble, thinks what a sorry lot is hers that she should be taken from her beautiful poems and forced to be a slave.
For so she puts it. She never seems to realize that there is a thousand times as much poetry in helping her mother as there ever was in any volume published. Next day her confidante hears in most inflated terms the story of her suffering, and the confidante tells somebody else, and she tells somebody else, and some day—this is not only possible but I have known an actual case—the loving mother of a foolish girl is horrified to hear that she is credited with not treating her child well.
And all of this came through the overwrought imagination of a young girl who didn't know
