know, dear, the gifts which God gives us are our equipments for that fight, and I feel sure your bright, happy disposition has been given to you to help you in some special needs of life.”

I didn’t quite like her saying that! It made me feel creepy, as if horrid things were going to happen, and I should need my spirit to help me through. I want to be happy and have a good time. I never can understand how people can bear troubles, and illnesses, and being poor, and all those awful things. I should die at once if they happened to me.

She went on to say that I must make up my mind from the first not to live for myself; that it was often a very trying time when a girl first left school and found little or nothing to occupy her energies at home, but that there were so many sad and lonely people in the world that no one need ever feel any lack of a purpose in life, and she advised me not to look at charity from a general standpoint, but to narrow it down till it came within my own grasp.

“Don’t think vaguely of the poor all over the world; think of one person at your own gate, and brighten that life. I once heard a very good man say that the only way he could reconcile himself to the seeming injustice between the lots of the poor and the rich was by believing that each of the latter was deputed by God to look after his poorer brother, and was responsible for his welfare. Find someone whom you can take to your heart as your poor sister in God’s great family, and help her in every way you can. It will keep you from growing selfish and worldly. In your parents’ position you will, of course, go a great deal into society and be admired and made much of, as a bright, pretty girl. It is only natural that you should enjoy the experience, but don’t let it turn your head. Try to keep your frank, unaffected manners, and be honest in words and actions. Be especially careful not to be led away by greed of power and admiration. It is the best thing that can happen to any woman to win the love of a good, true man, but it is cruel to wreck his happiness to gratify a foolish vanity. I hope that none of my girls may be so forgetful of all that is true and womanly.”

She looked awfully solemn. I wonder if she flirted when she was young, and he was furious and went away and left her! We always wondered why she didn’t marry. There’s a photograph of a man on her writing-table, and Florence said she is sure that was him, for he is in such a lovely frame, and she puts the best flowers beside him like a shrine.

Florence is awfully clever at making 

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