It is a study to watch the different expressions and manners of the people whom we meet.  There is the woman who, on meeting makes one feel that they have passed through some difficult surgical operation, her look is so hard and penetrating, like the surgeon’s knife.  Then another with an expression so benevolent, so charitable, that one is inclined to turn again to catch one more glimpse of the kindly face.  A little farther on we see a young girl, with a look so joyous and happy, so entirely free from care, that we are impelled to search for the rosy glasses through which she views life.  Time, the dispeller of all golden hued visions, has left her mind untouched, and she retains the joyous dreams of youth.

There is another with a look of discontent, amounting to almost misery.  The rose-colored glasses have been broken early, and she is gazing through the murky, cloudy atmosphere of discontent.  Another young girl is passing, and look closely! her face is a study, with its varying expression, reflecting every passing mood, then gay, now sad.  The world either hardens or breaks the heart.  Which process is her heart undergoing?  In a few years, meeting her again, the face will be the page on which the story will be written in full, either in sombre tints or golden gleams.

Once more look at the daintily dressed woman coming down the street.  She was made for sunshine and happiness, adversity would kill her.  There are women who give one the impression that they should have all the good gifts which the gods provide, should be carefully looked after, tenderly cared for, they will share your joys, but no need to tell them your sorrows, for what can they know of sorrow? they whose feet have always travelled in smooth places.  Refinement of manner and delicacy of feeling are essential qualities for every lady; but spare us the “dainty” woman.  In hospitals there are women, educated and refined, who witness sights daily which cause them to sicken and shudder, but they are none the less refined, because they look upon the suffering of some poor mortal, none the less ladies, because they assist in alleviating the distress of their own kind.  But “dainty,” they can not be, thank heaven!  It is the dainty woman who, if she sees a diseased, shabbily dressed mortal in trouble, passes quickly to the other side for fear of contamination, if she sees a child in distress hesitates, before offering help, to see if it is cleanly, and then the hand she offers is so nerveless, helpless and lifeless, so weak and vacillating that perhaps it would have been just as well had she gone on her dainty way.