In order to fulfill aright the duties of any relation of life, the first requirement the greatest necessity, next to a firm resolution and will, is good health.  Without good health there is no substantial foundation for anything earthly.  Good health is the fountain of human enjoyment and the greatest of earthly riches.  It is the great beautifier; it is the great preservative of good looks.  How strange, then, that so many girls are so careless, so provokingly careless, of this priceless blessing!  How strange that they will wear clothing that they know tends to break down their health; tight corsets that compress the lungs and spoil the natural shape of the body; tight shoes that interfere with the circulation of blood, and make their noses and hands red, and give them predisposition to colds and coughs and nervous headaches, all of which put to severe tests the patience and affection of those around them.  Good health is always attractive; ill-health, invalidism, nervousness, are very apt to be repellant.  Better good health than beauty, if one were obliged to choose—­which one is not, for good health is one of the chief elements of beauty.

So, if you aim first to be good and kind and intelligent and industrious and skillful, so that you may be fitted to guide and adorn a home should you be blessed with one, or to be fitted to shape your life to usefulness and independence if you never have a home of your own, and if in connection with these aims you seek to obtain and preserve good health, you will, so far as this life is concerned, “be thoroughly furnished unto all good works.”  You will become a noble woman, whose adorning will be not alone of the outward appearance, but of the inner life and of the soul—­an adorning which, according to St. Paul, “is in the sight of God of great price.”

LETTER IV.

Personal habits.

My Dear Daughter:—­The power of winning love and friends, which is such a precious possession to all young people especially to young girls, will, in connection with good behavior and good manners, depend very largely upon certain personal habits, chief among which are order, neatness, promptness, and cheerfulness.

The girl or woman who is personally disorderly and untidy in her room and dress puts a great strain upon the patience and affection of all those associated with her who are possessed of refined and cultivated tastes.  In fact, I believe there is nothing so disenchanting, so contrary to ideal young womanhood as a lack of neatness and tidiness in person and dress.  This wonderful physical organism with which we have been endowed depends for its perfection and health and attractiveness upon the care we give it.  The teeth, the hair, the complexion, are all dependent for their beauty—­and it is quite right that we should strive to make them beautiful—­upon constant attention to those conditions which insure