wind without a veil, and you should never lace tightly if you wish to have a good complexion. When the face gets rough, as it is apt to do after a walk in the wind, a very little glycerine and rosewater or glycerine and cucumber will help to keep the face clear and soft. Cosmetics are undoubtedly a fertile cause of the bad complexions so common among the upper middle classes, and though by no means all cosmetics are harmful, you should be very careful what you put on your face.

Freckles are very annoying to some girls. They are caused, as you doubtless know, by the sun. It is not the heat, but the light of the sun that causes freckles, and it is the violet of the light that causes them. The colour red absorbs the violet rays of the sun, and therefore a red veil or a red parasol should be used by women who are very prone to become freckled. I am not going to say that a red parasol will entirely prevent freckling, but it does very materially lessen it.

Many persons, who would otherwise have a good complexion, are marred by what are called "birth-marks." These are of three kinds—moles, port wine stains and "spider nævi."

A mole that is small and not very disfiguring should be left severely alone. You can do great harm by meddling with it, and not uncommonly it is made very much worse by caustic or poisonous applications. If you have a large and really disfiguring mole on your face have it removed by a surgeon. The younger you are the better will be the result of the operation. A minute scar will be left where the cut was made, but if the mole was removed early in life the scar will be a small linear mark often quite unnoticeable. These big moles are, in themselves, somewhat dangerous, for in elderly people they occasionally develop into cancers.

Moles not removed are to be left alone. But to this there is one exception. If hairs grow upon the moles, they must be removed if possible. The only safe way (excluding electrolysis which is rarely called for) to treat the hairs on moles is to cut them short. You should never irritate a mole by pulling hairs out. The soft, downy hair so common on small moles may be bleached with peroxide of hydrogen if very noticeable.

Can anything reasonable be done for port wine stains? Yes, if they are small. Tattooing with the electro-cautery is a fairly efficacious method of treating these disfiguring marks. Electrolysis is quite useless for this purpose. No other treatment is satisfactory except removal, where this is practicable.

The "spider" nævus is a small dilated vein, usually situated on a very conspicuous part of the nose. It looks just like a little red spider, and can be readily removed by plunging a tiny electro-needle into the body of the "spider."

Wounds on the face, as elsewhere on the body, do not leave a scar unless they go right through the skin. Serious wounds of the face always leave scars, and the scars will be prominent in inverse ratio to the skill with which the original cut was treated. All considerable wounds of the face should be stitched up with horsehair and treated on rigid antiseptic principles so as to obtain rapid healing. The more rapidly a wound heals the less disfiguring will be the resulting scar.

Many women complain very bitterly of a dark ring round their necks. It is natural for the skin round the neck to be darker in colour than that on the face or chest. If the ring is really very dark and conspicuous, carefully applying a little peroxide of hydrogen will often make it less noticeable.

I will not say much about face powders save that those containing any colouring matter, lead or arsenic, should never be used by any one. Where there is a tendency to acne, powder must only be used with extreme caution. Unquestionably powder of any kind is a mistake.

(To be continued.)

PREPARATION FOR MARRIAGE.

By the Author of "How to be Happy Though Married," etc.

A minister of one of the many denominations once began an extempore marriage service with these words, "My friends, marriage is a blessing to a few, a curse to many, and a great uncertainty to all. Do ye venture?" When no reply was forthcoming he said, "Let's proceed." Now I think that it is only those who are wickedly careless, or so stupid that they are without anxiety, who make this venture without due preparation, and this preparation should begin, as it seems to me, with our earliest years. Not, of course, that little boys and girls should be always thinking of and planning for marriage, but that their parents and guardians should remember that this is a fate in store for them, and that one day these children will have homes of their own which they will either curse or bless.

That some preparation is required for marriage was authoritatively recognised by the ancient state of Belgium, as I gather from a picture which I once saw in the Historical Society's collection of paintings in New York. The scene is the inside of a peasant's house in Belgium. On an easy chair sits a fatherly old priest who is catechising a shy, awkward-looking country bumpkin. Near him is his lady-love. She would gladly prompt him only the priest is keeping a sharp eye upon her. In the background is the girl's mother preparing a wedding repast in case the young people pass their qualifying examination. Underneath is the name of the picture—"Catechism before marriage according to the ancient State of Belgium as necessary for state and matrimonial security." Now we think that this was a very good rule, which provided that before young people should take upon themselves the great responsibilities of marriage, they should have learned at least this much of the catechism, how to do their duty to their neighbour. Of course husband and wife are more to each other than mere neighbours, but they are that at least, and if they do not do their duty towards each other, homes will be wretched, and where homes are miserable the state cannot but be weak, so we see that it was a matter for state control.

Suppose a man spends his youth not in settling his habits, which is what we ought to do when young, but in sowing wild oats, do you not think that he will reap a crop of wild oats in his domestic life?

"Who is the happy husband? He who scanning his unwedded life
Thanks Heaven with a conscience free 'twas faithful to his future wife."

Who, on the other hand, is a miserable husband? He who cannot bring to his marriage a clean bill of moral health, who cannot make upon his wife the best of all marriage settlements, the settlement of habits in the right direction. And even young ladies require some preparation for marriage. If they are frivolous and flirty and have no higher notion of worship than to burn incense to vanity, they will not be happy themselves in married life and assuredly they will not make their husbands happy.

Then there is physical or bodily health to be considered. Mr. Herbert Spencer says that the foundation of all success in life is to be a good animal. If a young man is always ailing (sometimes the consequence of ale-ing) he will not be capable of supporting his wife and children, and if a woman have a chronic sofa complaint, she may be a very good woman, but she has mistaken her vocation when she became a wife. The doctor's bills too have to be considered, and the effect upon children of hereditary complaints. On one occasion as Dr. Johnson and a young man were waiting in Mr. Thrale's drawing-room before dinner, the young man asked the doctor if he would advise him to marry. Nettled at the interruption the doctor replied, "Sir, I