It was very difficult to turn that waiting time to any useful account, especially in the dim light of a wintry morning, for I had to catch the first train. I smile as I picture the little bare waiting-room and the scarcely-lighted fire, by which I sat and shivered and tried to cherish bright thoughts amidst dull surroundings. Those who value their own time lightly are seldom scrupulous about wasting that of their neighbour. Have we not all been lectured, again and again, on the sin of unpunctuality? I think I hear you ask whether unpunctuality deserves to be ranked as a sin? Let us consider the question, then decide for yourselves. Neither you nor I would like to steal our neighbour's purse, or even help ourselves to a solitary sixpence. But if, by our neglect, carelessness or wilful selfishness, we rob him of that on which his income depends, are we not equally guilty, though the law cannot reach us for this offence? Time is money to the toiler in every branch of work, whether mental or physical, and we have no right to waste our neighbour's capital which money cannot restore to him. So many people, old as well as young, seem unable to understand what punctuality means. Those who allow their own time to slip away unheeded, cannot see that it matters whether they are a few minutes too soon or too late for an appointment. If by some chance--a rare one--they are too soon, they plume themselves on this, and are perhaps inclined to be indignant if they are kept waiting and their time is wasted. Dear girls, do think of this! If you make an appointment try and keep it to the minute. Be neither before nor after the time fixed, but by your punctuality redeem your own time and avoid the sin of wasting what is not your own. Indolence is a terrible and stealthy thief that ought to be battled against, with a prayerful sense of our own weakness to resist its encroachments. Indolent people are like unpunctual ones--very prone to steal the time which their neighbour values and turns to good account. How many busy men and women have had to work when they ought to have been resting after a finished task, because an idler has interrupted it by dropping in at the office or the home during working hours? The one object of such visitors is to while away the time which hangs heavily on their useless hands, regardless of consequences to those on whom they intrude, or too selfish to care, so long as their own end is served. Unfortunately the sufferers have not always a remedy. Circumstances may render it unwise to complain, or politeness restrains them from doing so, even when they are inwardly chafing under the infliction. They do not like to deny themselves to these thieves of time, for whom perhaps they feel a very real affection; or it may be they cannot afford to risk giving offence on account of their relative positions. Hence they suffer in silence.