moment ugly dress or furniture is out of fashion its ugliness is
apparent. I suppose most of us must be content to be tyrannized over
more or less by fashion, or by fashion and poverty combined, till we
develop greater genius in working out the problem of how to make our
surroundings beautiful. I would simply suggest that we should resist
fashions we know to be hideous, and try to follow those which commend
themselves to our sense of beauty.

The two forms of beauty which are free to all of us are, I think, most
neglected, and more neglected among those who are surest of their title
as ladies than among those of more modest pretensions. These are poetry
and nature. To read beautiful poems constantly and to learn them by
heart, and to look out day by day on the glory of the world--these
things give higher refinement than can be won by anything else merely
intellectual. And such a love of beauty usually has deep springs in the
moral nature.

Education has so much to do with refinement that we expect a lady to be
educated as a matter of course, at least in some directions, mathematics
and science being thus far not included. George Eliot says of Nancy in
"Silas Marner," that she often used ungrammatical language, and was not
highly educated, but that she was a thorough lady because she had
delicate personal habits and high rectitude.

This brings us to the deep foundations. A lady must be truthful. And the
outward marks of truthfulness are sometimes recognized when their source
is misunderstood. The lady wears real lace instead of a showy imitation.
If she cannot afford what is real, she goes without. She is as careful
about neat underclothing as neat dress. She does not pretend to
accomplishments she has not. Indeed, the modesty essential to a lady is
intimately connected with truthfulness. When she is wrong she does not
think it beneath her dignity to own it. She never allows blame which
belongs to her to fall on any one else. She makes no display. She wishes
to be loved for herself and not because she belongs to the "best set,"
so she does not take pains to introduce the names of great acquaintances
into her conversation. And of course she always tells the truth. She may
observe all these things simply because it is good form, but a truthful
woman will observe them without knowing they are good form, and she will
be the real lady.

But one may have all the qualities we have enumerated and yet miss the
charm we ass