There was no embarrassment for his loss of mind, no thought of being distressed or pained by it, and because his children took their father's state so quietly and without shame, every guest who came took it in the same way, and there was no thought of keeping the father out of sight.

He sat in the living-room in his comfortable chair, and always one child or another was sitting right beside him with a smiling face.

Instead of being a trying member of the family, as happens in so many cases, this old father seemed to bring content and rest to his children through their loving care for him.
Very often--I might almost say always--the trying member of the family is trying only because we make her so by our attitude toward her, let her be grandmother, mother, or maiden aunt.

Even the proverbial mother-in-law grows less difficult as our attitude toward her is relieved of the strain of detesting everything she does, and expecting to detest everything that she is going to do.

With every trying friend we have, if we yield to him in all minor matters we find the settling of essential questions wonderfully less difficult.
A son had a temper and the girl he married had a temper.