Grandfather's loss of his job, of his specialty of effort, of his hold on the great industrial machine, leaves him too often hopelessly at sea for the passing of time still left to him.
Well-to-do women in the United States, moreover, have acquired through the large leisure inherited wealth or their husband's means have supplied, a social business that has not only delayed old age but nearly obliterated its ancient signs and tokens.

The Clubs, the Leagues, the Alliances, the charitable agencies, the institutions of care for the defective, the friendless, the infirm, the dependent children, the countless societies and cooeperative social organizations for social serviceableness, in which women are leaders and chief workers, bear witness that "grandmother" has found a place for her energies after the children have grown and set up households of their own.
If such a grandmother is a member of the daughter's family she is not half so objectionable to daughter's husband as when mother-in-law had a permanent place at the fireside, perhaps in the exact spot where he wanted to put his easy chair, and had to be "taken out" if she ever ventured into the great world.

She now has her own interests, often so many and vital that her day is more completely filled than when she was younger.

She has her own set of friends and her own use for the energy and power of direction that often in the old days made her a troublesome member of the family.

If only she has a chance at her own little cooking, and her own individual sitting room, and has her own income, if ever so small, she may fit well into even a city apartment and no other member of the family be the worse.