g of the feet with some of a
more elegant but far colder quality, and take off altogether the thick
warm garments worn out-of-doors. A bear that should follow the same
course when it went home to its snug subterranean den would naturally
enough die of some pulmonary disease. Nations which are subjected to
long and severe winters have learned the more natural and excellent
way. The Laplander keeps on his fur, the Russian his wadded garment,
the Tartar his sheep-skin, the Shetlander goes about in his house in
his wadmal. It is only in our high state of civilization that men and
women divest themselves of half their clothing with the thermometer
below zero, and then run to the fire to warm their freezing hands and
feet.

If warm clothing protects us out of the house, it will do the same in
the house; and it is no more "coddling," and much more sensible and
satisfactory than cowering over a grate. Under the head-dress a silk
skullcap is a most effective protection against draughts, and would
prevent many an attack of neuralgia. A silk or wash-leather vest will
keep the body at a more equable temperature than the best fire. A
shawl to most middle-aged ladies is a graceful toilet adjunct even in
the house, and it is capable of retaining as well as of imparting much
warmth. When very chilly after removal of outside wraps, or from any
other cause, try a wadded dressing-gown over the usual clothing. In
five minutes the added comfort will be recognized.

The secret is, then, to keep the body at its proper temperature in the
house by the adoption of sufficient warm clothing, instead of trusting
to artificially heated atmosphere. No one will be more liable to take
cold out of the house because she has been warm in the house. There is
no more sense in shivering in-doors in order to prepare the body to
endure the out-door climate than there would be in sleeping with too
few blankets for fear of increasing the sense of cold when out of
bed.

A stuffy room, with air constantly heated to 75 deg., is the most
efficacious invention ever devised for ruining health. But it is
equally true that _habitual warmth_ is the very best preserver of
constitutional strength in middle and old age; and undoubtedly this is
best maintained by a temperature of 68 deg. and plenty of clothing.

A very important aid to warmth is a proper diet. Many women who suffer
continually from a sense of chill, below the tide of healthy life,
have yet constantly at