NANNIE B. and FIDDLESTICKS have our best thanks for their letters.

ISIS.—­We are much obliged for the account of your visit to the Temple, and we regret we can make no use of it.  You will acquire more ease in writing by constant practice.

GERTRUDE.—­We think the first year you must take what is offered to you in the way of salary.

A FIELD OFFICER’S DAUGHTER.—­We have perused the two poems, and consider that they hold some promise of better things, though both are faulty in construction and rhyme.

INCONSISTENCY’S paper is too much like a schoolgirl’s composition for our pages; but she evidently tries to think, which is more than many people do.

ELSIE.—­We never heard any more of the saying about Brighton, than “a country without trees and a sea without ships,” and we have looked for the original authorship in vain.

SWEET VIOLETS.—­We know of nothing but constant rubbing and the practice of gymnastics to do your shoulders good.  You probably have some trick of standing crookedly that has helped to make it grow out, such as standing on one leg, or giving down on one side.

FOREVER AND EVER writes English very well, though her writing is rather too pointed to suit English tastes.  But at 16 she has plenty of time to alter it if she likes.

B. H. M. W.—­The lines show much good feeling and affection, but no poetic talent.

A WELL WISHER.—­Rydal and Loughrigg, a township of England, Co.  Westmoreland, on the Leven, two miles N.W. of Ambleside, celebrated for its beautiful lake, on the banks of which stands Rydal Mount, long the residence of the poet Wordsworth.

MADGE.—­We think “Madge” must not worry herself, as she certainly cannot help people who will not allow themselves to be helped, in her way at least of assisting them; good advice is generally unpalatable.  She must look on the best side of the matter, and hope that her friend may be happy and comfortable in her own way.  We doubt that you could have prevented the marriage, as your friend is very likely tired of the trouble of earning her living, and thinks of marriage as a way of escape.  You must commend both her and her affairs to God, and cease worrying yourself.

NELL.—­Your mother’s brother is your uncle, no matter whether by the father or the mother.  To put the case in another way, your grandfather’s son is your uncle by whatever wife he had, first or fourth.  Of course you could not marry him.  See the “table of degrees of affinity” in the Book of Common Prayer.

ONE OF OUR GIRLS.—­We think that men not much exposed to cold and damp, and night work, such as sailors and soldiers, do not need the warmth nor stimulant obtained by smoking any more than women do.  Nevertheless, a single cigar or pipe daily would not be injurious to a grown man, though much so to a young lad in his teens.  Men are so careless about cleansing their pipes from that poisonous nicotine, that multitudes have found their habit of excessive smoking a highly provoking cause of cancer in the mouth.