Poor old Harvard seems to be getting it on all sides just now to pay up for the good time she had during the 250th Anniversary. During that brief period of sweetness and light, enough good things were said about her and enough flattery was bestowed upon her to have turned the head of any less sensible old lady. But she only smoothed her dress a bit, put a new crimson ribbon on her cap, and blushed with modest pride.

As soon as her guests had departed, however, and while she was sweeping the house in her every day clothes, she began to hear horrid things which were said about her on all sides. People seemed bound to be disagreeable to her because they were jealous of her.

Then some other people spitefully said that she wasn't the first lady in the land after all; that there was a lady in Florida who should have the precedence in going out to dinner.

Later on some of her neighbor's children played rough games with her boys and beat them. One of them said that her youngest boy Johnny was afraid, because he wouldn't come out and sail boats with him.

Then, because she had to punish some of her boys as all good mothers must, people made a big talk over it and said they were all badly brought up. Not content with all this, now within a few days they say that she shows favoritism in giving her boys pocket-money, that she doesn't give some of them enough to eat and that although she has plenty of money, she won't build an addition to the house, but allows the boys to be crowded out, to sleep in the shed or at the neighbor's.

We write this to say a word of defence for the dear old lady, or people will begin to think she is getting sour and cross as she grows old. She is the same kind, generous mother she always was, only more so, and to the extent of her ability and her purse, she does all she can for her boys. We also wish to certify, hereby, that these boys are well bred and polite, and what is the best additional quality, they are afraid of no one. If family jars ever occur, or if Johnny does something the older boys would not have done, we all know the old adage about the best regulated families. Mother Harvard is the best of women, and her family is a model for any community.