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[Illustration:  Day dreaming.]

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To young women.

1.  To be A woman, in the truest and highest sense of the word is to be the best thing beneath the skies.  To be a woman is something more than to live eighteen or twenty years; something more than to grow to the physical stature of women; something more than to wear flounces, exhibit dry goods, sport jewelry, catch the gaze of lewd-eyed men; something more than to be a belle, a wife, or a mother.  Put all these qualifications together and they do but little toward making a true woman.

2.  Beauty and style are not the surest passports to womanhood—­some of the noblest specimens of womanhood that the world has ever seen have presented the plainest and most unprepossessing appearance.  A woman’s worth is to be estimated by the real goodness of her heart, the greatness of her soul, and the purity and sweetness of her character; and a woman with a kindly disposition and well-balanced temper is both lovely and attractive, be her face ever so plain, and her figure ever so homely; she makes the best of wives and the truest of mothers.

3.  Beauty is A dangerous gift.—­It is even so.  Like wealth, it has ruined its thousands.  Thousands of the most beautiful women are destitute of common sense and common humanity.  No gift from heaven is so general and so widely abused by woman as the gift of beauty.  In about nine cases in ten it makes her silly, senseless, thoughtless, giddy, vain, proud, frivolous, selfish, low and mean.  I think I have seen more girls spoiled by beauty than by any other one thing, “She is beautiful, and she knows it,” is as much as to say that she is spoiled.  A beautiful girl is very likely to believe she was made to be looked at; and so she sets herself up for a show at every window, in every door, on every corner of the street, in every company at which opportunity offers for an exhibition of herself.

4.  Beware of beautiful women.—­These facts have long since taught sensible men to beware of beautiful women—­to sound them carefully before they give them their confidence.  Beauty is shallow—­only skin deep; fleeting—­only for a few years’ reign; dangerous—­tempting to vanity and lightness of mind; deceitful—­dazzling of ten to bewilder; weak—­reigning only to ruin; gross—­leading often to sensual pleasure.  And yet we say it need not be so.  Beauty is lovely and ought to be innocently possessed.  It has charms which ought to be used for good purposes.  It is a delightful gift, which ought to be received with gratitude and worn with grace and meekness.  It should always minister to inward beauty.  Every woman of beautiful form and features should cultivate a beautiful mind and heart.