How ashamed one feels, even if quite alone, while reading a really foolish book! and the feeling of shame is a right and healthy one. Perhaps the type of story which does most harm to girls of the middle and lower classes, is that in which a titled lover of fabulous wealth appears suddenly like a “god out of a machine” to wed the heroine, who is remarkable only for her beauty. He has a great deal to answer for, that young aristocrat, whom we have not met outside the pages of such literature. No girl would deliberately reflect: “I am going to read such and such a novel to improve my mind.” If she did, she would show she had not much mind to improve. But she may bear in mind one or two general principles and suggestions. It is very desirable to read the best historical novels. For example, _The Last Days of Pompeii_, by Bulwer Lytton, and _Hypatia_, by Charles Kingsley, will help you to realise the early centuries of the Christian era. _Hereward the Wake_, by Kingsley, and _The Last of the Barons_, by Bulwer Lytton, may be read in connection with Freeman’s _History of the Norman Conquest_. _The Cloister and the Hearth_, a magnificent historical novel by Charles Reade, throws light upon the fifteenth century, and _Romola_, by George Eliot, does the same so far as Italy is concerned. _Westward Ho!_ by Charles Kingsley, is a stirring tale of the sixteenth century. _John Inglesant_, by Shorthouse, will do more to explain the Stuart period than any number of dry “Outlines,” while Thackeray’s _Esmond and The Virginians_ may follow on. The _Tale of Two Cities_, by Charles Dickens, will help you to realise the terror of the French Revolution, and _The Shadow of the Sword_, by Robert Buchanan, gives a forcible picture of the days of Napoleon. There are many other good historical novels; but, as Scott is always regarded as _facile princeps_ in such work, it may be useful to arrange his novels in chronological order. Before the end of the fourteenth century come _Ivanhoe_, _Count Robert of Paris_, _The Betrothed_, _The Talisman_, and _The Fair Maid of Perth_. After 1400—_Quentin Durward_, and _Anne of Geierstein_: 1500, _Kenilworth_, _The Abbot_, _The Monastery_, _Marmion_ (poem): 1600, _Fortunes of Nigel_, _Legend of Montrose_, _Woodstock_, _Old Mortality_, _The Bride of Lammermoor_, _Peveril of the Peak_: 1700, _The Antiquary_, _Guy Mannering_, _Waverley_, _Rob Roy_, and _Heart of Midlothian_. That history should be made real is a matter of no small importance. After all, it is the story of men and women like ourselves, and Professor Seeley’s remark in _The Expansion of England_ (a valuable book) is worth remembering— “When I meet a person who does not find history interesting, it does not occur to me to alter history—I try to alter _him_!”