Whereupon came a prompt and gracious reply, with the frank and manly admission: “You guessed aright. I simply forgot to speak of women.” Now, you perceive, it set me thinking—this obliquity of mental vision, which had led a writer so talented and wise to squint thus at the human race, seeing but half of it. I recalled the fact that, into most families, are born girls as well as boys; nay, as many an over-burdened _pater familias_ can testify, they come not unfrequently in largely superior, if not exclusive numbers. Having, also, at a remote period of my history, belonged to the same helpless fraternity, I was haunted by the wish that I might write a sequel to the Professor’s excellent book, talking therein to girls and women about success in life. Perhaps my time has come; perhaps, in the generous pages of THE CHAUTAUQUAN, whose editor is so tolerant of the “strong minded” sisterhood, I have the largest audience that has yet consented to listen to my “views.” Anyhow, I mean, in these newly acquired pages to talk to girls of “How to Win” in something besides the sense treated of in books of etiquette and fashion magazines, or systematically taught in dancing schools. And now, my dears, if you are patient and my small assistant keeps me in lead pencils, I shall try to show that if every young woman held in her firm little hand her own best gift, duly cultivated and made effective, society would not explode, the moon would not be darkened, the sun would still shed light. Somehow, dear girls, when I see an audience of young men, they remind me of a platoon of soldiers, marching with fixed bayonet, to the capture of their destiny. An assembly of young women, on the other hand, recalls a flock of lambs upon a pleasant hillside. They frisk about and nibble at the herbage and lie down in the sun, while above them soars the devouring eagle of their destiny, sweeping in concentric rings through the blue air, and ready to pounce down upon them, while the meek little innocents turn their white faces upward and mildly wonder “what that graceful creature is up yonder?” They remind me, too, of the reply given by a bright young friend of mine to the solemn exhortation that she should “make the most of life.” “Humph!” she exclaimed with a rueful grimace, “I have no chance, for life is busy making the most of me!”