r once visited the Mary Institute at St. Louis. He
was asked to make a speech, and after glancing at the five hundred
beautiful young girls before him, he turned to the fine faces of the
teachers, many of whom were gray-haired, and said:--

"It is a beautiful thing to be a charming young lady; and the best of it
is that you will sometime have a chance to be a charming old lady!"

All old ladies are not charming, but a great many of them are; and would
not all of us be so if we could follow the prescriptions I have given so
liberally for the conduct of life all the way through? Suppose we were
all sweet-tempered and warm-hearted and truthful, and as neat and pretty
as we could be, and bright and intelligent and modest and helpful--do
you not think we should be charming even if our eyes were dim and our
ears dull, and we walked with a cane?

Nevertheless, there is one practical rule that old people must never
forget. They must keep growing as long as they live. Your temper must be
sweeter at forty than it was at twenty, and sweeter at sixty than at
forty, if it is to seem sweet at all when your bright eyes and red lips
are gone. We can pardon a sharp word from an inexperienced young girl,
who speaks hastily without reflection, but we cannot pardon it so easily
from a woman who has had a lifetime to reflect.

If you would keep fresh in body, you must not pay too much attention to
rheumatic twinges, and sit still in a corner because you are too stiff
to rise. Take your painful walk, and you will be less stiff when you
come back. You will have fresh life from outside, and not be a burden to
younger lives impatient of your chimney corner.

One of my friends, who is nearly eighty, has taken a trip to Kansas this
winter, and has been delighted with the new life she has seen. I need
not say that her delight makes her delightful to others. "You need not
suppose," she writes, "that I am going to settle down and be an old lady
yet. I am planning a visit to California next year."

Mrs. Horace Mann and Miss Elizabeth Peabody were both nearly eighty when
they went to Washington on official business--something in reference to
the Indian troubles, I believe. I have already cited my mother's friend
who began to study botany at ninety. And why not? If the end of
knowledge was to help us to get our daily bread, we might at last fold
our hands; but if it is to open our minds to the glory of the universe,
to make us more worthy to be th