“Said a lady, pointing to a gentleman and his wife in a social circle of this kind, ’I ought to know them well,—­I have seen, them every week for twenty years.’  It is certainly pleasant and confirmative of social enjoyment for friends to eat together; but a little enjoyed in this way answers the purpose as well as a great deal, and better too.”

“Well, papa,” said Marianne, “in the matter of dress now,—­how much ought one to spend just to look as others do?”

“I will tell you what I saw the other night, girls, in the parlor of one of our hotels.  Two middle-aged Quaker ladies came gliding in, with calm, cheerful faces, and lustrous dove-colored silks.  By their conversation I found that they belonged to that class of women among the Friends who devote themselves to travelling on missions of benevolence.  They had just completed a tour of all the hospitals for wounded soldiers in the country, where they had been carrying comforts, arranging, advising, and soothing by their cheerful, gentle presence.  They were now engaged on another mission, to the lost and erring of their own sex; night after night, guarded by a policeman, they had ventured after midnight into the dance-houses where girls are being led to ruin, and with gentle words of tender, motherly counsel sought to win them from their fatal ways,—­telling them where they might go the next day to find friends who would open to them an asylum and aid them to seek a better life.

“As I looked upon these women, dressed with such modest purity, I began secretly to think that the Apostle was not wrong, when he spoke of women adorning themselves with the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit; for the habitual gentleness of their expression, the calmness and purity of the lines in their faces, the delicacy and simplicity of their apparel, seemed of themselves a rare and peculiar beauty.  I could not help thinking that fashionable bonnets, flowing lace sleeves, and dresses elaborately trimmed could not have improved even their outward appearance.  Doubtless, their simple wardrobe needed but a small trunk in travelling from place to place, and hindered but little their prayers and ministrations.

“Now, it is true, all women are not called to such a life as this; but might not all women take a leaf at least from their book?  I submit the inquiry humbly.  It seems to me that there are many who go monthly to the sacrament, and receive it with sincere devotion, and who give thanks each time sincerely that they are thus made ’members incorporate in the mystical body of Christ,’ who have never thought of this membership as meaning that they should share Christ’s sacrifices for lost souls, or abridge themselves of one ornament or encounter one inconvenience for the sake of those wandering sheep for whom he died.  Certainly there is a higher economy which we need to learn,—­that which makes all things subservient to the spiritual and immortal, and that not merely to the good of our own souls and those of our family, but of all who are knit with us in the great bonds of human brotherhood.