THE ELDER SISTER.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10753, 26 April 1913, Page 4

THE ELDER SISTER.

( c< Home Notes Pago.")

" I don't know what I should do without Joan. She is quite a little woman, and a wonderful help to me with the younger children!" said Joan's mother.

" I'm sure she is," I agreed. "It is about Joan that I have called' to-day-I want to know if you will let her join my Picnic Club, and go to the woods with a party of other girls every Saturday during the summer term."

"Oh. no; I'm afraid not! I can't spare her, you see. I always look forward to having her to help me on Saturdays." This is very often the fate of the elder sister, if she is a good-natured, obliging girl. She becomes a little (drudge, and it is taken for granted that her part in life is to be " mother's right hand " a very hard-worked liand, which has to do everyone else's odd jobs. It is an excellent thing for a girl to help mother and to make herself useful about the house. But busy parents sometimes forget that " all work and no play makes Jack a dull lad," or, in this case, makes Joan a dull, harassed, anxious little woman, who is old long before her time. '' I wonder why Miss Blank has never married?" I said once to a friend, who had known the Blank family all their lives. "She is so pretty and charming that I am sure she must have had a great many proposals!" "Oh. yes, she did," was the answer. "She was engaged. I believe, but she broke off the engagement because she felt it her duty to stay at home aaid take care of her younger brothers and' sisters. The mother was not strong, you know."

" "What a shame!" I cried. "Oh. 110! It was her duty," said my friend. Perhaps. But what about the mother's duty?