“And now for my poor little great-niece! Her mother piles up charges against her, but how interesting and amusing and like the free world of fairy-land it would all be were it not for the _tendencies_ which, in these days, we talk much about and watch little against. We bring up our children in the easiest, happy-go-lucky way, and all the time talk solemnly in big words about the momentous importance of every influence brought to bear upon them. But it is true; these naughty, winsome ways of Kitty’s will end in her growing up like half the ‘girls’--that is, young women--one meets. They talk glibly on many subjects; but test them, and they know nothing of any; they are ready to undertake anything, but they carry nothing through. This week, So-and-so is their most particular friend, next week such another; even their amusements, their one real interest, fail and flag; but then, there is some useful thing to be learnt--how to set tiles or play the banjo! And, all the time, there is no denying, as you say, that this very fickleness has a charm, so long as the glamour of youth lasts, and the wayward girl has bright smiles and winning, graceful ways to disarm you with. But youth does not last; and the poor girl, who began as a butterfly, ends as a grub, tied to the earth by the duties she never learnt how to fulfil; that is, supposing she is a girl with a conscience; wanting that, she dances through life whatever befalls; children, husband, home, must take their chance. ‘What a giddy old grandmother the Peterfields have!’ remarked a pert young man of my acquaintance. But, indeed, the ‘giddy old grandmother’ is not an unknown quantity. “Are you saying to yourself, a prosy old ‘great-aunt’ is as bad as a ‘giddy old grandmother’? I really have prosed abominably, but Kitty has been on my mind all the time, and it is quite true, you must take her in hand. “First, as to her lessons: you _must_ help her to gain the power of attention; that should have been done long ago, but better late than never, and an aunt who has given her mind to these matters takes blame to herself for not having seen the want sooner. ‘But,’ I fancy you are saying, ‘if the child has no faculty of attention, how can we give it to her? It’s just a natural defect.’ Not a bit of it! Attention is not a faculty at all, though I believe it is worth more than all the so-called faculties put together; this, at any rate, is true, that no talent, no genius, is worth much without the power of attention; and this is the power which makes men or women successful in life.