like patches on a crazy quilt.

There is not one woman in forty who can afford to ignore the ordinary precautions for preserving her complexion during the summer months.

A parasol is the first necessity. A white gauze veil is another, although this can be dispensed with if the skin is not particularly sensitive to sun and wind. Never, under any circumstances, must you bathe your face in soap and water before going out of door or just after coming in. This habit will make the freckles pop out in fine order. After coming in from a tramp or a fishing party bathe the face at once in half a cupful of sweet milk in which a pinch of soda has been dissolved. If this is inconvenient, as it often is when one is a hotel guest and not a cottager, then use a good face cream. Strong soaps containing an excess of alkali are bad enough at any time, but during the hot weather they are particularly trying to almost any skin. Too much care cannot be taken to get proper soaps.

The following sedative lotion applied to the face will prevent its tanning or freckling to any extent, that is, if one takes proper care of one's skin:

When the face becomes sunburned apply plenty of cold cream. But be sure that it is your own home-made cream, else you may be putting lard or something else on your face, which, in a most amazing short time, will produce a thrifty growth of tiny, fine hairs. And then you will wish you had never lived to see the coming of the "happy summertime."

Lastly, to remove freckles, quickly apply lemon juice with a camel's hair complexion brush. Let the juice dry in and massage with creme marquise.

COMPLEXION POWDERS.

Whenever women fail for congenial topics of dispute they can always fall back on the old topic of the best face-powder.

"I have used that delightful velvety 'Blush Rose' for years and years," says Mrs. Lovely, "and I think it is simply fine."

"Blush Rose?" shrieks Mrs. Pretty. "Why, I wouldn't use that for a-an-any-thing! My husband's brother-in-law, who worked in a drug store, once told me that 'Blush Rose' had lead and bismuth and ever so many other dreadful, awful things in it. Now, I dote on 'Velvety Carnation.' I know that that is perfectly pure. And it sticks just like your husband's relatives—simply never lets go!"

"'Velvety Carnation!'" repeats Mrs. Lovely. "You poor child. I don't wonder that you have such a time with your skin—" And so on until both charming disputants march airily away, each deciding that the other will soon be in her grave if such foolishness in the choice of a face powder is continued.

Women need not discuss finances or peace policies. They have their own little face-powder question that is good for all time to come, no matter whether we all go and settle in the Philippines or hand these interesting islands back to Spain with a "much-obliged, thank you." I have often thought how thankful we should all be that we are not Dahomey ladies, who have no opportunities for these pleasant little arguments. We may have to put up with a good many discomforts in our life of civilization, but we don't miss quite everything in the way of joys.

The formula for face powder which I am about to give is not only perfectly harmless, but of exceptional medicinal qualities. Nothing is better for an irritated skin than boracic acid, so the girl with facial eruptions can feel perfectly safe in using this powder. Oxide of zinc, in the quantity given, can do no possible injury; many of the manufactured preparations being made almost entirely of this ingredient.

A formula for violet powder is given in the chapter on perfumes.

WRINKLES.

It doesn't matter whether or not you are afflicted with wrinkles, it's an excellent thing to give them some attention. Freckles are bothersome and provoking, and red noses make us as cross as black cats, but wrinkles!—they are the worst of all, for with them comes the sickening realization that the freshness of one's complexion is beginning to fade, and that youth itself is slipping away.

It is before the lines really appear that they should be considered, for then they're much more easily managed than when they—with their sisters and their cousins and their aunts, to say nothing of grandmas and babies—settle down for a nice long stay. Wrinkles are worse than bogie men, and "they'll git you if yo' don't watch out!"

Wrinkles are unnecessary evils—anyway, until one gets to be a hundred or so. That is, if you are so lucky as not to have troubles enough to keep you awake six nights out of seven, which seems to be the case with most people these days. Even then perhaps you can deceive yourself into believing that life is one big, lovely, roseate dream after all. Worry is a paragon of a wrinkle-maker. And, by the way, did you ever know why?

It is not so much for the reason that screwing up the face traces lines and seams in the skin as it is because the fretting upsets the stomach. It has a most depressing effect on that hyper-sensitive organ. Haven't you often noticed what a finicky, doleful sort of an appetite you have whenever you are indulging in a fit of the blues? The physiological explanation is the very close alliance of the great sympathetic nerves, which make up a little telegraph line more perfect and complete than any yet constructed by man. The poor, worn brain is fagged and tired. This fact is immediately communicated to the stomach, which, in true sisterly fashion, mopes and sulks out of sheer sympathy.

Then, of course, with an unruly digestion, all sorts of complications begin. The eyes get dull, the face thin and sallow, the complexion bad, and the flesh flabby. At that stage the wrinkles, with their aforesaid relatives, sail in upon the scene. And there you are! And—ten chances to one—it's a cheerful time you'll have getting rid of them.

That's why I say you must take them in hand before they arrive, and dole out discouragement to them by correct living and the