re is no end to the sufficiency of character. It can afford to
wait; it can do without what it calls success; it cannot but succeed.
To a well-principled man existence is victory. He defends himself
against failure in his main design by making every inch of the road to
it pleasant. There is no trifle and no obscurity to him: he feels the
immensity of the chain whose last link he holds in his hand, and is
led by it."

Perhaps no other every-day virtue counts for so much in the general
welfare of the world as the adapting of one's self to, and the making
the most of, one's immediate surroundings. It is in the hundreds of
little, unrecorded deeds of kindness and goodness that we lay the
foundations of character. And because these humble lives, that mean so
much to the other humble lives with which they come into touch, are
never specifically named and shouted by the multitudinous tongues of
type, that many fail to see in them the elements of true and noble
achievement with which they are crowned. "The most inspiring tales,"
it has been truly said, "are those that have not been written; the
most heroic deeds are those that have not been told; the world's
greatest successes have been won in the quiet of men's hearts, the
noblest heroes are the countless thousands who have struggled and
triumphed, rising on stepping-stones of their dead selves to higher
things."

Since it is these humbler every-day virtues that one is called upon
oftenest to exercise, or to neglect, it is apparent that the one who
possesses the most of them and who cultivates them the most earnestly
has the greatest number of opportunities of winning the admiration of
others. It is of a girl possessing this fine adaptability to the
world's workaday surroundings that "Amber" draws this pen-picture:
"Shall I tell the kind of girl that I especially adore? Well, first of
all, let us take the working girl. She is not a 'lady' in the
acceptance of the term as it is employed by many members of this
latter day's hybrid democracy. She is just a blithe, cheery,
sweet-tempered young woman. She may have a father rich enough to support
her at home, but for all that she is a working girl. She is never idle.
She is studying or sewing or helping about the home part of the day.
She is romping or playing or swinging out of doors the other part. She
is never frowsy or untidy or lazy. She is never rude or slangy or
bold. And yet she is always full of fun and ready for frolic.