an appalling store of useless knowledge. It was her custom to shroud those household articles that would not be the better for daily soap and water, in layers of newspaper. Newspapers protected the section of tinted wall behind the kitchen sink; newspapers protected the splasher that protected the wall behind my washstand. And it was my happy custom to forget the unpleasantness of the duties I was forced to perform in both spots by losing myself in the fascinating columns hung so conveniently before my eyes. Oft the stale journals told of nothing but the births, marriages, and other misfortunes of the world that lay within my farthest milestone. But I can remember, too, a learned article--the Dial's, I think -on the Napoleonic revival, that hung before my gaze for a week. I can say it now word for word to the first row of tacks that held it in place. I had washed the dishes, every meal, every day, with my eyes glued on it; and I read it through each washing time. The denominational weekly that kept the oilcloth covering of the kitchen table from stain gave me a biased but consistent view of church history. The upper and lower shelves of the range set forth, respectively, for two weeks, the "Tendency of Modern Philosophy" and the "Cause of the Democratic Disintegration."

When, later, by reason of my exceeding plainness of feature, I was sent to college to acquire that wisdom that is mistakenly supposed to atone for lack of beauty, my wasteful habit stood me well. For a month I had been tonguetied in the Latin class of a professor who made every fresh occasion of our ignorance on any topic the subject of a philippic against the home, school, and state. When, on a day, this terrible one broke into a lesson with a sneering question as to recent investigations on the sites of some ancient towns that inconsiderately turned up in the notes, I rose to a height, and delivered a review of the work of Flinders Petrie. The class was open-mouthed, and the professor pop-eyed with wonder. They

had not seen me hang over the dishpan with Flinders neatly pinned round the soap-box that fronted my nose. That was but the first time. Equally startled was the botany instructor when I gave some expert information on the variations of the orchid, gathered from my bureau cover. In a literature class, with facts gleaned from the place on the cellar wall where the coalman might put his hand, I delivered an address on the Pre-Raphaelite movement, as shown in the works of Rossetti. The climax of my manifestations of endless knowledge came when I saved an awful dinner-table by conversing with a reformed missionary on the tribal ceremonies of some inner African races. He wondered even while he listened. I had not been sent to dust the leg of a paper-swathed piano for nothing. In spite of my mediocre lessons I became in the course of time a by-word and a Phi Beta Kappa, and — but I hate to write the word. For there are days when I fear that I shall never have use for the facts I have gleaned from the scratchable back of my mahogany chair, on “How to Plan the Trousseau." And to add to the store of my useless information, a gilt-framed ancestor disappeared for the summer behind a sheet that explains with distracting pictures, "What Baby Needs."

NATURE'S LADIES

A YOUNG Woman remonstrated with her sister upon her choice of a costume in which she was to meet a stranger of importance. "Why do you wear a shirtwaist?" she asked. "Don't you want to look like a lady?”

“I'm a self-made lady," the sister replied. "I'm one of Nature's ladies."

Now the question as to whether Nature can turn out ladies as she is said to furnish gentlemen is one open to discussion. One will say that she does; that a feminine creature of good moral character, of gentle manners, of careful grammar, and irreproachable turnovers cannot help being a lady. This appears a broad-mind

ed and reasonable statement; but there will be found dissenters.

"My daughter-in-law is a horror," complained a matron recently, "but I ought to be thankful I suppose, she is

a perfect lady." A perfect lady who is a horror seems a little of a paradox at first glance. But we have all met people mostly young men perhaps - who assert that perfect ladies often fill them with a sensation which, from their description of it, may well be classified as a sort of horror. This would hardly be the effect of the simple feminine creature of our definition; and we must conclude that the horror produced in the young man's breast is akin to that feeling we all have when we see certain circus or vaudeville performers: they are like ourselves in the number and arrangement of their limbs and features; but they are doing things so alien to our familiar human tastes and powers, twisting themselves into such abnormal and difficult positions, that their resemblance to ourselves only makes them the more repellant and embarrassing.

This is perhaps an extreme illustration, and seems to throw a reproach on the other difficult (and admirable) art of being a lady, which should be far from the thoughtful mind. But it brings us to the point of view opposite to that of the simple definition with which we started.

This other view is that a lady is a product of education, a creation of art, as a violinist is, as a fencer is; and that she could n't by any possibility be the result of unschooled genius, even assisted by a gentle voice and perfect turnovers. The practicing of a code till it becomes ingrained is expensive and laborious, like the high French polish of a piece of mahogany; but it gains that sense of security and calm which only ritual can give its devotees, and which a lady must have before she can gently overwhelm and crush her neighbor, as we know ladies sometimes have to do.

"I know what's manners in Dubuque," coldly said a little lady of mine, when an

elderly person from Brooklyn, not her mother, presumed to correct her. Until you lose faith in the manners of Dubuque, the Faubourg St. Germain can have no terrors for you.

to

There are then so many varieties of ladies, and ladies are, of their nature, so indefinite, elusive, and chameleonic, that we may study them more coolly perhaps by examining preserved specimens the dear dead women of fiction. Emma Woodhouse is very elegantly and delightfully a lady for art's sake. Her character may lack largeness, her habit of mind be intriguing, but her manner is never at fault. She is never too surprised, or too hurried, or too agitated, to keep her poise, to think "without a thud," and express herself with decision and simple elegance. When Mrs. Elton invades the quiet of Highbury with her horses and carriages and family very much on her mind, Emma entertains her with dignity and poise, but recognizes her as "an insufferable woman "with the swiftness and sureness of an expert. She navigates the troubled waters of unsuccessful matchmaking, a false love affair, and (a much more trying test for a lady's manners) a real affaire de cœur, and arrives at the end of the volume serenely successful, and in love and charity with rival, rejected suitor, false lover, and betrothed. "Good God, this has been a most unfortunate mistake "is all the sharpest anguish can wring from her, and this is hardly a stronger expression than "Great Scott" would be on the lips of a young lady of to-day, for she employs it on several occasions, without great provocation.

Emma's technique is so finished, her polish so high, that she would be a safe and delightful addition to any small dinner party. She would feel, in countless vibrations, a kinship with the grand vague ladies of George Meredith, even the swimming and hill-climbing ones. who must have been trying to live with. No inmate of the House of Mirth could exchange calls with her; but oh! the doors of King's Port would open to her

at once. Mrs. St. Michael and Mrs. Weguelin St. Michael would be conquered at their first visit of curiosity. She would detect Hortense Rieppe as an insufferable woman indeed, and she would contrive to let her see it. She might have a little difficulty in pardoning the Ladies' Exchange, for her code would not admit of young ladies selling things across a counter; but she would ultimately swallow Lady Baltimore with grace, and admit that Eliza La Heu was a fully qualified member of the mystic order, and moreover a match for herself with the foils. There is a sweetness and a depth in John Mayrant's character that she would admire, while appreciating clearly that none of it was in her own, and she would entertain them agreeably at a house party at Hartfield (should they visit England), to which the sprightly Frank Churchill would be invited; and who would blame her if Mrs. Elton was not, or if "Lady Baltimore" was never mentioned at the Knightleys' dinners?

THE AUTOMOBILE AS A REST

CURE

A great cry has gone up out of the land against the automobile as a disturber of the peace, a breaker of quiet and of bones, and an agent of unrest. Such is the habit of man when considering a new thing. He seizes upon the obvious and ignores the real significance of the object of his scrutiny. Even a writer in the Contributors' Club once voiced a protest. In this circle one would naturally look for maturer judgment and a more philosophic point of view; but he too seized upon the obvious, and carried away by the impulse of the moment, said much that he must remember now with shame and mortification. He said, "I, for one, cannot see that rational speed can exist at the expense of all the other pleasures of the road," and again, "I like traveling, and I like racing; but I do not care to be implicated in this disreputable debauch of hurry. Our love of haste has made real

travel almost as rare as real correspondence."

But this was all two years ago. He is wiser now, I hope, and begins to realize the true mission of the automobile, and to understand that, instead of being a disturber of the peace, the automobile encourages the calm pleasures of repose and reflection. To be sure it is an occasional breaker of bones; but that is due alone to man's propensity to blunder. To realize how the automobile induces to quiet living and high thinking one has but to own one, or better still, to have a friend who owns one.

My friend Oliver is a substantial man of affairs, much engrossed in the duties and responsibilities of a successful professional career. Realizing the danger of "nerves," he purchased an automobile, and frequently invites me to accompany him on his trips into the country. I can never repay his kindness, for these trips have wrought in me a great change. I never knew before the pure delights of repose and contemplation.

I recall an afternoon in early May when I first realized the possibilities of the automobile as a rest cure. We spent the afternoon in the cool recesses of a halfdeserted garage. The oil-soaked asphalt floor, the white beams overhead, the silent machines in quiet rows against the walls, made a picture of peace and tranquillity. The listless movements of the picturesque workmen as they talked their strange jargon in subdued undertones, and frequently rested from their labors, seemed in tune with the place and time. For three long hours Oliver and I sat and rested amid these ideal surroundings. We returned to our homes restored alike in mind and body.

Again, one breathless August afternoon Oliver and I were far afield close to Nature in the noonday of her maturest summer charms. That afternoon again we rested by the highway. We smoked and talked and waited. We observed every growing, flying, creeping, or swimming thing about us. We listened to the dry cicada in the treetop and grew wise in Nature's lore. We came to know each other as we never had before, and when our peaceful afternoon was ended, we returned to town through the summer twilight, slowly, with no undignified haste, in tow of a helpful friend who chanced our way.

Then there was that glorious autumn day when we roamed far from home, enticed by beautiful foliage and stimulating autumn air. I still remember the journey home. How quiet, and uneventful it all was! The machine, as if realizing its high mission, demanded frequent pauses and went only with gentle sighs of protestation. And when, amid the gathering darkness, we essayed to make haste, it uttered а final groan of anguish and remained immovable and mute. How thick the stars came out! How lovely the moonlight! How plaintive the whip-poor-will as we thought of far-off friends and dinners!

Since I have become the friend of an automobilist I am a changed man. I am calm and philosophic, a lover and observer of nature and my fellow-men. It is a mystery to me that enterprising manufacturers have so long failed to exploit the restorative qualities of their machines. But it will come before long, for in the minds of thinking men there begins to dawn a faint conception of the untold possibilities for good, in this restless age, of the automobile as a rest cure.