When I say that it is wise to gather as many opinions as we can, it must always be with the idea of helping our own judgment, never as putting the responsibility on to others of any important decision, which ought to rest entirely with ourselves, and which, as in the case of Darwin's father, we may entirely alter; but when we change, we equally accept the responsibility of any important decision quite independently of the adviser.

It stands to reason that when parents give their children money to spend according to their own wishes and tastes, they are acting a great deal more unselfishly than when they spend on their children, however lavishly, only to make them do what the parents consider desirable. This giving freedom to children means a good deal more self-sacrifice on the part of the parents, and, as the unselfishness of one person is very apt to produce the selfishness of another, it is a question for each parent to decide whether the sacrifice had better come from the old or from the young. It is an undeniable fact that the tastes of children are likely to be the reverse, rather than a repetition, of the tastes of their parents. In weighing these questions, however, you must always cast into the scale the importance of a true knowledge of the value of money, which nothing but practical experience can give.

Few things bring such ruin, in every sense of the word, to the happiness of married life as the extravagant wife-the wife who runs up bills, and who amidst tears and penitence and promises not to do the same again, immediately does so. Can anything as much as this, short of actual immorality, bring a respectable woman so nearly to the level of the unrespectable ?

Strong advocate as I am for marriage, I do agree with Miss Frances Power Cobbe, 'That for a woman to fail to make and keep a happy home is to be a greater failure, in a true sense, than to have failed to catch a husband.'I have noted somewhere the following sentence, and I think it as true as it is lofty in tone: 'There is only one real power in this world for man or woman-the power given by character. It carries far more weight than talent does without it. The woman who cultivates unswerving rectitude, firm energy, and persevering goodness, will become a centre and a factor in the lives of others, wherever her lot is cast. All round us we see such women forced by outside pressure into positions of comparative, if not positive, prominence, and they have no need to whine over the unalterable fact of sex.'

The better a girl or a woman is treated by a father or a husband in the matter of money, the more heavily does the duty remain with her to remember that, after all, the money is only conditionally hers, and that no woman has a right to eat a man's food, dress with his money, enjoy his luxuries to the full, and then not in every way try to please him; and certainly she should never do systematically that which he distinctly disapproves. If she cannot persuade him, she must submit and do his will. No woman is really free who cannot keep herself; and even if she earns her own livelihood, she has to submit to her employers.

One can hardly write a 'note' on girls and avoid the great subject of dress. Certainly let the young dress in the fashion, in order to be attractive; for there is no doubt that, even if the fashion is ugly, to be dressed in the fashion looks smart. When I was young I was scolded for trying always to get the last new pattern from Paris. I used appealingly to remark, 'I can't be graceful, let me be smart.' There are always certain women who can dress artistically and peculiarly, and who look well in whatever they put on; but these are the exception, and their imitators-as is usual with imitators-are apt to adopt their faults rather than their merits. Exceptional dress, independently of the wearer, is rarely, I think, attractive. Women who have dropped out of the fashion themselves are apt to be a little tried, when their daughters grow up, by the dress of the day, and to think it rather exaggerated and ridiculous, just as the daughter would feel her mother's wedding-gown to be impossible and out-of-date. A mother can only give her daughter general training, and then leave her to dress as she likes, merely offering her the kindly criticism that would be given her by a friend or a sister; for every woman looks best in that which she herself has chosen, and which is an indication of her own individuality. By this I do not deny that many a mother would dress her daughter much better than the girl would dress herself; but the note of character would be wanting, which, in my opinion, makes dress in the long run the most becoming.

Even when they are children, little girls often surprise their parents by saying something unexpectedly different from what they have been taught. I know a father who, when walking with his small daughter in the streets of London, stopped before the window of a smart milliner's shop. When they had looked and admired for a little time, the father, perhaps rather priggishly, remarked: 'After all, my dear, I like simplicity best.' The child answered: 'That's not at all like me, father; I like splendour best.'

Deny it as we will, the real object of dress is to attract; and for a woman to dress herself in crimson and purple, when she knows quite well that her husband or father prefers quiet colours, or even black, shows a neglect of the amenities of life that is stupid, if it is nothing worse.

From a higher point of view, there is nothing so important in dress as the accentuation of what are our physical characteristics. A fat girl in tight tailor-made clothes looks ridiculous. A girl with a tall slight figure, like a boy, looks well tight and neat, ready for the active exercise she is fit for. The womanly woman looks best in soft laces and ruffles and chiffons, be she fat or thin.

Let middle-aged and old women, except when they are widows, dress in the fashion slightly modified. They are then neither conspicuous nor ridiculous. Is there not wisdom in dressing rather in advance of your years than behind it ? Many a dress lasts three or four years; so we ought, at turning-points in our lives, to remember that this makes a difference. It has been said that the lamp of life is not to be measured by the age of the vessel, but by the supply of the light. Prettily expressed, I admit, and there is something in it, but it is only a half-truth, and the Baptismal Register is the best guide for us personally. Nothing displeases the young so much as to see the generation before them dressed too youthfully, and nothing so accentuates the years that have passed over a woman as the outward display of her having forgotten them herself. I remember once remarking to a friend how well a tall, slight woman dressed, and how it suited and improved her. 'Yes,'said he, - a thin, tall woman is a peg for clothes; but there is all the difference in the world, as the Frenchman said, between une belle taille and un beau corps' So there are consolations in all things, and many of the great passions of the world have been for plain women-perhaps because they themselves are so much more grateful for the affection given. Beauty added to other things is a great power; let no one despise it. It is often easier for a beautiful woman to behave well than for her plainer sisters. She has the ball at her feet, and she knows it.