MOTHER: Yes; clean, kind thoughts make marks on our faces, and wicked, cruel thoughts leave their print also. Our thoughts pull up or draw down the corners of the mouth, and they make little wrinkles under the eyes and in the forehead. Sometimes they make little holes in the cheeks, which we call dimples. If our thoughts are kind, pleasant, happy thoughts, they draw the corners of the mouth upward; the wrinkles are smoothed out of the forehead, and there are some merry ones which gather round the eyes and make the face look so pleasant that we want to get near its owner and become better acquainted. AMY: I didn’t know that our thoughts looked out in our faces. MOTHER: If either good or bad thoughts come to live in your mind all the time, they will print themselves on your face and change your looks. The good thoughts will make your face beautiful, though your hair may be as straight as an Indian’s, your nose crooked, and your mouth large. On the other hand, though your hair may curl, your skin be as fair as a peach blossom, your features be perfect, yet if you let bad thoughts live in the mind, your face will no longer look lovely to others. It is only a kind, unselfish heart that can give true beauty. HELEN: I have often wished that I might be pretty, like some of the girls at school, but I know now how to be lovable if I am not beautiful. MOTHER: There are a few other things which will help you to have a good-looking face. First, keep it clean. Then the next thing is to eat good food, that you may have a clear, healthy skin and bright eyes. You should also be careful to brush your teeth, that these little guards may always be dressed in the cleanest of white uniforms. Then keep your hair in good order. Brush it often, and keep the whole head sweet and clean. If you do these things, you will always be pleasant to look at. I was reading not long ago about a little girl who was told of the wrinkles that smiles leave on our faces, and the wrinkles that scowls leave, as well as those left by pain, thought, and care. The child listened, and then said brightly, “My grandma has _lots_ of wrinkles, but they’re all _smile_ wrinkles, _every one of them_.” So, my children, as the days pass by, see that your mind is pleasant, and your body-temple kept clean and pure. Thus you will live useful lives, and be a blessing to yourselves and others. “If I knew the box where the smiles are kept, No matter how large the key Or strong the bolt, I would try so hard, ’Twould open, I know, for me. Then over the land and the sea, broadcast, I’d scatter the smiles to play, That the children’s faces might hold them fast For many and many a day.