But to go to practical details.  Take a girl who wants to be good and dutiful and useful, to be a comfort at home, to keep her brain in good working order, and to enjoy herself:  what should she resolve upon if she is to be of use in the world and not drift idly along?  She must think it out for herself, and no longer wait for orders.  She must put the salt of self-denial and effort into every day, of her own accord, and not feel absolved because her mother has not given any special orders.  You are responsible for your own life, and it is horribly easy to slide into a slack, pleasure-seeking life which will eat all the good out of you.

You must not fill the day with rules and employments so that people feel you always engaged, yet, though you must seem disengaged, you must have a real purpose underneath.  You must be free to idle about after breakfast while your mother or the visitors are settling the day’s employments, and yet you should aim at always having something to show for your morning,

    “Something accomplished, something done.”

It is more difficult to live an ordinary idle life well than a hard-working one, because it rests entirely with you whether you put any salt into your day, and because it is your duty to do much as other people do, while at the same time, underneath, you must keep to your standard of Right and Wrong.

But, suppose a girl wants to arrange her own individual life on the best possible lines.  Had you better make your plan, and begin at once?

There is great danger, if you wait, that your good resolutions will die away, and you will never begin.  And yet, when you first leave, you want a little time to feel quite free, and your people like to feel you are quite free to enjoy yourself.

There is a great deal to be said for beginning at once, but I am not sure about it!

If you feel that you will never begin good ways unless you do so at once, then begin!  But I am not sure that I should advise you to make your Resolution at once, though I should like you to make your Plan.  I should like you to plan your day while you are here, and write it out:  you will not do much with Resolutions unless you write them.  Plan what time you will get up and go to bed (you should have a conscience about both); settle a plan of your reading,—­what books you want to read during the first year, what poetry to learn, what subjects to study.  Plan it all out, and then seal it up, and keep it till Christmas comes.  Then think over it, and pray over it, before New Year’s Day, and then start your definite resolutions with the new year.

But are you to fritter away the time between this and then?  No, carry out your ideas of reading sensible books and doing kind things for friends and poor people, and saying your prayers and reading the Bible, and write down every day exactly how much you did.  Let your resolution be to keep a record of these months, rather than a resolution to keep to a detailed plan.  Keeping a record is self-discipline in itself, it means self-examination every night.  If it shows you to be silly and idle and unpersevering, it will make you ashamed of yourself.  Also it will give you some idea of how much time you can really count on getting.  See how your plan works before you promise God to keep it, and then you will not make unwise resolutions at the New Year.