all readily understand how much more pleasing it is to hear a true virtuoso play the violin or pianoforte than it is to listen to a beginner who can perform indifferently on a number of instruments.

"A little diamond is worth a mountain of glass."

Quality is the thing that counts.

All flimsy, shallow, and superficial work is a lie, of which a man ought to be ashamed.—John Stuart Blackie. The desire and disposition to do a thing well, coupled with a firm determination, are pretty sure to bring the ability necessary for achieving the wished-for end. The will is lacking more often than is the way.

When we cease to learn, we cease to be interesting.—John Lancaster Spalding. It is a matter of frequent comment that we usually expect too much of the average young and attractive girl in the way of accomplishments. Because she is pleasing in her general appearance we are apt to feel a sense of disappointment if we find that her qualities of mind do not equal her outward charms.

The workless people are the worthless people.—Wm. C. Gannett. Charles Lamb says: "I know that sweet children are the sweetest things in nature," and adds, "but the prettier the kind of a thing is, the more desirable it is that it should be pretty of its kind." And so it is with girls who are bright and blithe and beautiful; the world would give them every charming quality of mind and heart to match the grace of face and figure.

Hence we find that the girl who is most fondly wanted, by the members of her own family, by her schoolmates, and by all with whom she shall form an acquaintance, is the one who is as pleasing in her manners as she is beautiful in her physical features.

Our ideals are our better selves.—Bronson Alcott. Of all the accomplishments it is possible for a girl to possess, that of being pleasant and gracious to those about her is the greatest and most desirable. "There is no beautifier of the complexion,

All literature, art, and science are vain, and worse, if they do not enable you to be glad, and glad, justly.—Ruskin. or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us," says Emerson.

It is possible for persons to acquire a great deal of information and to become skillful in many things and still be unloved by those with whom they are associated.

All things else are of the earth, but love is of the sky.—William Stanley Braithwaite. The heart needs to be educated even more than the mind, for it is the heart that dominates and colors and gives character and meaning to the whole of life. Even the kindest of words have little meaning unless there is a kind heart to make them stand for something that will live.

To fill the hour, that is happiness.—Emerson. "You will find as you look back upon your life," says Drummond, "that the moments that stand out, the moments when you have really lived, are the moments when you have done things in a spirit of love. As memory scans the past, above and beyond all the transitory Ah, well that in a wintry hour the heart can sing a summer song.—Edward Francis Burns. pleasures of life, there leap forward those supreme hours when you have been enabled to do unnoticed kindnesses to those round about you, things too trifling to speak about, but which you feel have entered into your eternal Avast there! Keep a bright lookout forward and good luck to you.—Dickens. life ... Everything else in our lives is transitory. Every other good is visionary. But the acts of love which no man knows about, or can ever know about—they never fail."

It is the ability to do the many little acts of kindness, and to make the most of all the opportunities for gladding the lives of others, that constitute the finest accomplishment any girl can acquire.

It often happens that the thought of the great kindnesses we should like to do, and which we mean to do, "sometime" in the days to come, keeps us from seeing the many little favors we could, if we would, grant to those just about us at the present time. Yet we all know that it is not the things we are going to do that really count. It is the thing that we do do that is worth while.

No doubt we should all be much more thoughtful of our many present opportunities and make better use of them were we frequently to ask ourselves,

WHAT HAVE WE DONE TO-DAY?

Genius is the transcendent capacity for taking trouble first of all.—Carlyle. We shall do so much in the years to come,
    But what have we done to-day?
We shall give our gold in a princely sum,
    But what did we give to-day?
We shall lift the heart and dry the tear,
For dreams, to those of steadfast hope and will, are things wherewith they build their world of fact.—Alicia K. Van Buren. We shall plant a hope in the place of fear,
We shall speak the words of love and cheer;
    But what did we speak to-day?

We shall be so kind in the after while,
    But what have we been to-day?
Love is the leaven of existence.—Melvin L. Severy. We shall bring each lonely life a smile,
    But what have we brought to-day?
We shall give to truth a grander birth,
And to steadfast faith a deeper worth,
We shall feed the hungering souls of earth;
    But whom have we fed to-day?

No man can rest who has nothing to do.—Sam Walter Foss. We shall reap such joys in the by and by,
    But what have we sown to-day?
We shall build us mansions in the sky,
    But what have we built to-day?
’T is sweet in idle dreams to bask,
But here and now do we do our task?
Yes, this is the thing our souls must ask,
    "What have we done to-day?"

Among the every-day accomplishments which everyone should wish to possess is a knowledge of the fine art of smiling. To know how and when to smile, not too much and not too little, is a fine mental and social possession.

Work is no disgrace but idleness is.—Hesiod. Hawthorne says: "If I value myself on anything it is on having a smile that children love." Any one possessing a smile that children as well as others may love is to be congratulated. A pleasant, smiling face is of great worth to its possessor and to the world that is privileged to look upon it.

Shoddy work is not only a wrong to a man’s own personal integrity, hurting his character; but also it is a wrong to society. Truthfulness in work is as much demanded as truthfulness in speech.— Hugh Black. A smile is an indication that the one who is smiling is happy and every happy person helps to make every one else happy. Yet we all understand that happiness does not mean smiling all the time. There is truly nothing more distressing than a giggler or one who is forever grimacing. "True happiness," says one of our most cheerful writers, "means the joyous sparkle in the eye and the