some one else, and I may as well reap the benefit as my neighbour." Each one is bound to do right for herself, whether any good results from it to others or not. But there is such power in goodness, that we cannot doubt the importance to others of any one person's acting conscientiously in such matters, whilst to the individual herself it is of vital consequence.

Borrowing clothes is a practice that can hardly be indulged in, even among sisters, without an unjustifiable infringement of the rights of others. It is generally those who are the most careless and improvident that wish to borrow, and they are least to be trusted with what is not their own. To wish to make an appearance beyond your own resources by borrowing the ornaments and rich clothing of others, is mean in the extreme. Friends or sisters may occasionally accommodate each other by the loan of a small article ; but the favour should be reciprocal, never on one side only, or it becomes a burden to the lender, and an indulgence of selfishness in the borrower. I have known sisters so mean and exacting, as to make a practice of supplying their own deficiencies by borrowing constantly of one more provident than the rest. The clean bonnet-cap was hardly prepared before it was borrowed, and the prettiest belt or cape was oftener worn by these harpies than by the rightful owner.

It is very allowable to borrow a shawl or cloak, where you would otherwise suffer for the want of one; but, in that case, beg for the least valuable one your friend has; wear it more carefully than you would your own; fold it up as soon as you take it off, and put it in a safe place till returned, which it should be as early as possible, carefully wrapped up and directed, lest it should be injured or lost on its way back.

If, at a party, you accidentally exchange some article of dress, and find, on returning home, that you have another person's hood, or shawl, or over-shoes, lose no

time in sending them back the next day to the house of entertainment, with a note describing your own article, and requesting that inquiry may be made for it when the article sent is called for.

If this were a general practice, such mistakes would be easily rectified; but if you do not make the house where the exchange took place a point of meeting, to set things right, you may never find your own, or restore what you have taken of another; and, whether you are a gainer or loser by the mistake, you should be equally anxious to correct it. I have known a very valuable boa exchanged at a party for a miserable little string of coarse fur; and if the person who made the advantageous exchange had taken half the pains to restore what did not belong to her, that the loser did to regain her own, it would have been forthcoming; but, from some obliquity or inefficiency, the valuable boa was lost for ever to its rightful owner. I have heard girls triumph in an advantageous exchange of this sort, considering it only a good joke, instead of a piece of dishonesty, and it certainly is nothing less to retain an article belonging to another without an effort to find the owner.

Let

I must not dismiss the subject of dress without reminding those ladies who are deeply interested in their studies, and are pursuing knowledge with an eagerness that leaves them little time or inclination for the duties of the toilet, that they are responsible to their sex for bringing literary pursuits into disrepute by neglecting their personal appearance. them simplify their dress as much as they can, but at the same time they should be even more careful than others to be always neatly equipped, and sufficiently in the fashion to avoid singularity. Let them consider that, for many years, it was a standing argument against giving daughters a liberal education, that if they became learned or literary, they would inevitably

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be slatterns in their dress, and in their conduct of household affairs.

The connexion, in many minds, is still very close between blue stockings and dirty stockings; let nothing be done to strengthen it; but let ladies of the present day who have highly cultivated minds, make a point of showing the world that their attainments are not incompatible with due attention to domestic affairs and personal neatness. Let them follow the example of those distinguished female writers of the last half century, who have done so much to destroy the prejudice of the other sex against learned ladies.

I can assure my young friends, from personal observation, that the classic lore of Mrs. Barbauld never interfered with the most exact attention to personal neatness and propriety of dress; that the poetic inspiration of Mrs. Joanna Baillie never prevents her from being a notable housewife, a very good dresser, and the best of neighbours to the sick and the afflicted. Neither do the scientific researches and high mathematical attainments of Mrs. Somerville interfere with other pursuits more common to her sex, such as botany, mineralogy, music, and painting, whilst the peculiar grace and beauty of her toilet would lead a stranger to suppose, that more than common attention had been bestowed upon it.

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CHAPTER VII.

MEANS OF PRESERVING HEALTH.

OLOGY.-STRUCTURE

IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT.-OBJECTIONS ANTICIPATED. -THE LAWS OF OUR BEING ARE FIXED.-EXTRACT FROM DR. COMBE.-ADVANTAGES OF THE STUDY OF PHYSIOF THE SKIN.-CLEANLINESS.WARM AND COLD BATHING.-MUTUAL DEPENDENCE OF THE SKIN AND THE LUNGS.-CIRCULATION OF THE BLOOD.-EXERCISE.-COLD EXTREMITIES. THE LUNGS. -DIGESTION. FOOD. DRINK. FASTING THE BEST CURE. CONSTIPATION.-TIGHT LACING.-TIGHT SHOES.

WERE this chapter headed with, "The Means of Preserving Beauty," how many eyes, that will now turn away from it with indifference, would then be riveted to it; and yet a better understanding of the subject would make those who are most anxious to preserve their good looks, seek most eagerly to know how to preserve their health, for without that, no one can long be beautiful, and with it the plainest person is sure of one kind of comeliness.

We think with horror of that sort of suicide which is committed by hanging, drowning, or poisoning; but take no note of the more numerous, and more responsible cases that are to be found among those who destroy their health by inattention to the laws which a wise Creator has affixed to the human constitution. Ignorance, a blamable ignorance, of the structure and functions of those organs on which life depends, has occasioned the death of thousands.

Women study all the arts and sciences which are fitted to embellish life, whilst they fail to become acquainted with that one subject, on which depends the exercise and full enjoyment of all else that they

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know. They spend years in learning to sing, without devoting one hour's attention to the construction of that wonderful instrument, the lungs. They pursue all other kinds of knowledge, and neglect that which is necessary to the due observance of the laws of their being; and, by ignorantly transgressing those laws, they bring on disease, and are prematurely cut off in the very bloom of life.

On no other subject connected with their temporal well-being, are persons so blind to their own interests. Suppose, for instance, that you inherited from your parents a valuable piece of mechanism, by means of which the most curious and complicated movements of puppets were performed, the finest music was produced, and a succession of landscapes was presented, in which motion was given to the trees, as if waving in the wind, brooks ran and bubbled, and clouds appeared floating in the air; suppose that the machinery which produced these curious results was all concealed in a closely-shut box, which could not be opened without destroying the instrument for ever. You received with the box a few directions about winding it up, and pulling certain strings and touching certain springs, at stated times, without knowing the connexion between these and the hidden movements within. This ignorance would inevitably lead to mistakes in its management; and if by chance any part were out of order, your attempts to rectify it would be made at random, and be as likely to do harm as good. Would you not, in such a case, be very desirous to learn something of the internal structure of this curious and valuable machine, more especially if by a spell your enjoyment of life, and life" itself, were made to depend on its being kept in good order?

say,

If a friend should come to "I have seen and you many such boxes before, I have seen them opened, and know exactly how they are constructed, and why