shape goes a long way. With your prospects you
really ought to make a good match, so do not slouch about any more as
if you had no self-respect at all. You can really do a great deal to
make yourself attractive in appearance. Your Uncle William Caldwell
had a very ugly nose, but he pinched it, and pinched it every day to
get it into shape, until at last he made it quite a good one."

Bernadine came into the room in time to hear this story, and was so
impressed by it that she tried the same experiment on her own nose
without asking if it were ugly or not, and pinched it and rubbed it so
diligently that by the time it was formed she had thickened it and
changed it from a good ordinary nose into something quite original.

This was the kind of thing that happened to ladies in the days when
true womanliness consisted in knowing nothing accurately, and always
taking advice. Efforts to improve themselves in some such way were
common enough among marriageable maidens, and their mothers helped
them to the best of their ability with equally happy hints. Because
small feet were a beauty, therefore feet already in perfect proportion
must be squeezed to reduce their size till they were all deformed; and
because slenderness was considered elegant, therefore naturally
well-formed women must compress their bodies till they looked like
cylinders or hour-glasses, and lace till their noses swelled and their
hair fell out. Never having heard of proportion, all their ambition
was to reduce themselves to something less than they were designed to
be. Those were the days when women had "no nonsense about them, sir, I
tell you," none of those new-fangled ideas about education and that.

It was a new notion to Beth that she could do anything to make herself
attractive, and she took a solemn interest in it. She listened with
absolute faith to all that her mother said on the subject, and
determined to be high-principled and make the most of herself. When
her mother talked to her in this genial friendly way, instead of
carping at her or ignoring her, Beth's heart expanded and she was
ready to do anything to please her. Lessons on the new method went on
without friction. Beth never suspected that her mother was unequal to
the task of educating her in any true sense of the word; her mother
never suspected it, neither did anybody else; and Beth had it all her
own way. If she were idle, her mother excused her; if she brought a
lesson only half-learn