THE WISDOM OF BEING YOURSELF!

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idiomatically in a foreign language, when it is their fortune to meet with a foreigner who cannot speak English.' I do not wish to underrate these attainments; but they cannot be regarded as other than trifles, and the girls who boast of them have no other resource for conversation than what limited visiting-lists supply. Such girls will seek refuge in corners, and gather in giggling groups; or retire from the drawing-room altogether, to escape the task of entertaining persons who have not the conventional stamp, and whom, therefore, the girls in their shallow conceit choose to brand as dull, vulgar, tedious, or commonplace. Let us hear no more, then, of the silly apathy or sillier assumptions of young girls in the circles of their elders. Let them modestly add their mite to whatever discussion is in progress, if they can do so with credit to them. selves and advantage to all concerned. And 'let girls themselves put an end to the flippancy and pert arrogance which will induce girls and women without womanly wisdom to silence the wise words of the wisest of men, in order that some foolish girl or woman may descant singly on her own petty experience, adventures, views, and prospects, to the full stretch of her exhaustless tongue and her invulnerable self-confidence. Any man or woman deserving the name, who has the misfortune to be among her audience, can only be by this conduct put to shame and confusion of face.'

In Society girls should avoid as much as possible the fault of copying the tricks of speech or manners of each other. Each should seek to cultivate an individuality of her own. But here I would strongly caution you to be careful. Do not cultivate eccentricity. Sir William Temple has wisely said, 'Oddities and singularities of behaviour may attend genius. When they do, they are its misfortunes and its blemishes. The man of true genius will be ashamed of them; at least, he will never affect to distinguish himself by whimsical peculiarities.' But you ought to aspire after an individuality of thought, expression, and style. You cannot altogether avoid being in some measure influenced in thought by the opinions of those around you, but

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'AN EXCELLENT THING IN WOMAN.

do not allow yourself to become merely the echo of your com panions. A girl whose observations are coloured by the one with whom she last conversed, who can advance no opinion of her own, who keeps to the 'prunes and prisms' of conventionalism, is utterly wearisome to all save those of a like mental calibre. No little sarcasm has been aimed at girls who have ventured to utilise their conversational abilities. They have been called pedantic, strong-minded, and many other unjust expressions-unjust because used in a slighting sense. But our Girls must not allow such folly to deter them from the cultivation of their faculties. They lose nothing of feminine softness because they are able to converse well, and have souls above the senseless, giggling chatter which is the present bane of society. It were much better to be considered a blue-stocking than a numskull, and no intellectual man will think otherwise than highly of the girl whose mental endowments enable her to meet him on equal ground.

Our Girls should seek to cultivate a low voice, 'that excellent thing in woman.' Nothing is so unpleasant as the loud penetrating tones which force themselves on everyone's notice, disturbing the conversation of others, and making the speaker the observed of all. It is especially disagreeable in a girl, and should be carefully kept under. If your voice is naturally loud, seek to modify and lower it, but without falling into the other grave error of making it indistinct. Allow no ridiculous affectations to creep in and mar the purity of your speech. Avoid clipping your words, or running one into the other; enunciate clearly and slowly, and you will give pleasure to all. I know a girl whose voice makes sweetest music of the harshest languages, of whom it has been said, 'When Mary speaks, one thinks of all pleasant summer sounds. It is like the breeze rustling the young green leaves, or the brook gently rippling over the sand.' Yet she has never been required to repeat her remarks. Low and gentle as they always are, they are yet so clear that they may be distinguished through all the busy chatter of the rooin. But do not imagine that by a low tone

of voice I am bidding you speak in whispers. Far from it. There is nothing more distasteful than a conversation so carried on. The harsh sibilations irritate all in the room, in addition to the fact that they convey the idea that the conversation is of a private nature, from which you are desirous to exclude all but the few whom you are immediately addressing. On the extreme bad taste of this I need not further descant ; it speaks for itself.

I would have our Girls, when they go abroad, cultivate their Self-Respect. Many of the moral evils now acting injuriously upon Society, are due to the extent to which girls and women have of late years abandoned their proper position. In dress and manners they copy those classes whom it should be an insult to name in the presence of a pure woman; they adopt the 'chic' (as it is called), the pretension, the loud vulgarity, which burlesques and French comic dramas have made popular on our stage. They converse upon subjects which should never enter even into their imagination. And they allow the young men a license of speech and a freedom of behaviour which, if their moral perceptions were not obscured, and their sense of the dignity of womanhood wholly blunted, they would be the first to reprehend. The character of English women is a precious national possession, for the loss of which no increase of material prosperity could compensate. Time was when, in their presence, the most audacious tongue was instinctively checked; it is the fault of our Girls that this most significant of all homage is no longer paid to them. Let them respect themselves, and Society will respect them. Let them, in their dress and demeanour and speech, study the highest propriety and the strictest reserve, and they will speedily recover their influence. Let them repress at the outset any attempt at familiarity on the part of the young men whom they meet in Society, and insist that in their hearing no vulgar phrase shall be uttered, no equivocation adventured. Let there be a due reticence in their affability. Let them never allow themselves to be enticed out of that seclusion of