I have always known that no good would come of sending Peggy to a coeducational college.  I urged Ada to set her foot down, for Ada didn’t wish to send Peggy there, naturally enough, but she wouldn’t.

“Well,” said I, “I’m not afraid to speak my mind to your husband.”  Now I very seldom open my mouth to Cyrus, or to any one else in this house, for it is more than ever the fashion for people to disregard the advice of others, and the older I get the more I find it wise to save my breath to cool my porridge—­there come times, however, when I feel it my duty to speak.

“Mark my words, Cyrus,” I said.  “You’ll be sorry you sent Peggy off to a boys’ school.  Girls at her age are impressionable, and if they aren’t under their mothers’ roofs, where they can be protected and sheltered, why, then send them to a seminary where they will see as few young men as possible.”

Cyrus only laughed and said: 

“Well, mother, you can say ‘I told you so’ if anything bad comes of it.”

“It’s all very well to laugh, Cyrus,” I answered, “but I don’t believe in putting difficulties into life that aren’t there already, and that’s what sending young men and young women off to the same college seems to me!”

When Peggy came home engaged, after her last year, everybody was surprised.

“I’m sure I don’t know what Cyrus expected,” I said to Ada.  “You can’t go out in the rain without getting wet.  Let us pray that this young man will turn out to be all right, though we know so little about him.”  For all we knew was what Peggy told us, and you know the kind of things young girls have to tell one about their sweethearts.  Peggy didn’t even know what church his people went to!  I couldn’t bear the thought of that dear child setting out on the long journey of marriage in such a fashion.  I looked forward with fear to what Ada might have to go through if it didn’t turn out all right.  For one’s daughter’s sorrows are one’s own; what she suffers one must suffer, too.  It is hard for a mother to see a care-free, happy young girl turn into a woman before her eyes.  Even if a woman is very happy, marriage brings many responsibilities, and a woman who has known the terror of watching beside a sick child can never be quite the same, I think.  We ourselves grew and deepened under such trials, and we wouldn’t wish our daughters to be less than ourselves; but, oh, how glad I should be to have Peggy spared some things!  How happy I should be to know that she was to have for her lot only the trials we all must have!  I do not want to see my Ada having to bear the unhappiness of seeing Peggy unhappy.  Even if Peggy puts up a brave face, Ada will know—­she will know just as I have known things in my own children’s lives; and I shall know, too.  This young man has it in his hands to trouble my old age.

No mother and daughter can live together as Ada and I have without what affects one of us affecting the other.  When her babies were born I was with her; I helped her bring them up; as I have grown older, though she comes to me less and less, wishing to spare me, I seem to need less telling; for I know myself when anything ails her.