To-day we are more reasonable.

We even say that fathers and mothers may not be taken into the home of their children if it best serves the mutual happiness for them to have separate homes.

We seldom now in enlightened families make the mistake of holding to "living together" when living apart is clearly the wiser thing.
The old sense of family responsibility is, however, happily not lost and in its new ways of working often gives a finer representation of mutual aid than was common of old.

The will of one rich man which included many gifts to sisters, cousins, and nieces, and left directions to the principal heirs to find out if there were any relatives of the same nearness left out and if so to make them equal sharers, is but a type of many who, with or without large means, share generously with all their name and kin.
On the other hand, we have examples of those who, in the effort to leave a large fortune for some specific object of education or of public charity, wholly neglect, often with cruel indifference, the needs of some member or members of their own family.

One man of conspicuous gift to education left a sister and her two daughters without means for comfortable living while piling up money for his pet scheme.