Advocate of the Absent'?" Or ask, "Have I, by my way of speaking or listening, lowered any one's standard to-day?" Very often people say things or make jokes tentatively, to see how we shall take it, and through fear of being stiff or priggish we surprise them by seeming to enjoy what they were rather uncertain about. It is quite curious how ashamed most people generally are of seeming as good as they really are; they "hide their best selves as if they had stolen them." If they would show their colours, they would find that many of the apparently careless people they meet do care about the real interests of life. If they themselves do care and yet try to seem careless, are they not responsible for half the carelessness in those about them?

"The manner of our ordinary conversation," says Bishop Wilson, "is that which either hardens people in wrong, or awakens them to the right. We always do good or harm to others by the manner of our conversation."

Aunt Rachel; or, Old Maids' Children.

"WHA

HAT is the matter, my dear?" said Aunt Rachel to her favourite niece, Urith Trevelyan, who was spending the Easter holidays with her. "You look fit to be a sister in mind, though I hope not in manners, to the Persian poet, who described himself as 'scratching the head of Thought with the nails of Despair.'"

"I think life is very difficult," remarked Urith, with a solemn sigh.

"There I partly agree with you," said Aunt Rachel; "especially to people who insist on doing to-morrow's duty with to-day's strength. I doubt very much if the holiday task, which I see in your hand, is the cause of this gloom."

"Oh dear, no! I was thinking what shall I do with myself when I leave school at Midsummer; it will be so very hard to read by myself."

"My good child, do attend to what you are doing; you are just like the man in the 'Snark,' who had

'luncheon at five o'clock tea, And dined on the following day.'

I wish you would dine off that unfortunate task to-day, and when you have finished it we will talk about your future work."

The task did not take long when Urith fairly gave her mind to it, and the next day she and her aunt started for a distant cottage at the far end of the parish. Urith seized the opportunity, and began as the door closed behind them

"Now, Aunt Rachel, how can I do everything I ought when I leave school? I shall know nothing of Greek or Roman history, or mythology, or French or German history, or even of English, except the period we have been just doing, and I have done only a few books in the literature class, and none in foreign literature, and I have forgotten all my geography, and I shall have Latin and Greek to keep up, and French and German and chemistry, and I don't know anything, hardly, of modern books, or of architecture or natural history, or philosophy, or of cooking "-here, in her ardour, she tripped over a stone, and her aunt availed herself of the pause to say

"Add Shakespeare and the musical glasses, and you will have a tolerably complete programme before you."

"Yes, Aunt Rachel, you need not laugh, you always say girls are so uneducated, and can't respond to literary allusions; but how are they to become educated when there is so much to be done?"

"My dear Urith, there is a very wise Irish proverb, 'Never cross a bridge till you come to it,' and though this bridge of culture seems such a bridge of sighs to you, I really do not think it need be. In the first place, it has not got to be crossed in one year. You get far more law now than in my young days, for you and your friends are not expected to come out fullblown heroines at seventeen or eighteen; you are almost expected to carry on your education for some time longer. It is not safe to count on it, for real life may come on you in a dozen ways when you once leave the safety of the schoolroom, but you will probably get several years of tolerable quiet, and, if I were you, I would not spend my first year in a desperate effort to fill up all the gaps in my education, and to go on with school-work in the school spirit. I should take my first year of freedom as the arbour on the Hill Difficulty, where Christian rested; the lord of that country does not like pilgrims to stay there for good, but they go on all the better for it afterwards. I should look on this year as being the ornamental fringe to the intellectual dress you have been weaving for yourself at school. And do not forget that the dress and the trimming are not an end in themselves— they are only to enable you to leave the house with decency, to go about your business; and at the end of the first year I should count up my

possessions and see where I was wanting-if the dress proved thin, I would then set to work and furnish myself with a jacket, by hard, steady work in the second year."

"But some of my school-work will be wasted if I don't keep it up."

"Quite true; but do not keep it up simply because you have once begun it; some of your lessons will have done their work by ploughing and harrowing your mind, and may be left behind. The use of school is to teach you how to use your mind, and to try your hand at several branches of study, that you may be able to follow whichever suits you."

"But I have not got any particular turn for anything, and it seems a pity to drop things."

"Yes, it is a pity, but you are not going to teach, and you will have to do the best you can. You had better make up your mind, before you begin life, as to what sort of woman you want to be, and then cut your coat according to your cloth, for if you begin by wanting to keep up everything, you will probably end by dropping everything, in despair."

"Well, I want to keep up Latin and Greek and French and German, and Algebra and Geometry and Chemistry and Mechanics, as well as English subjects."

"And seeing that your day will probably be