Mother, teacher, father, it is for you to know the answers to these questions. You have guarded this girl through years of helpless infancy and thoughtless childhood. At the peril of her life, and of what is of more value than life, do not now relax your vigilance. Every day the reaper Death reaps with his keen sickle the flowers of our land. The mothers weep, indeed; but little do they realize that it is because they have neglected to cherish them as was their duty, that the Lord of Paradise has taken them back unto Himself. THE COMPLETION OF PUBERTY. The symptoms increase until at length the system has acquired the necessary strength, and furnished itself with reserve forces enough to complete its transformation. Then the monthly flow commences. In thoroughly healthy girls it continues to recur at regular intervals, from twenty-five to thirty days apart. This is true of about three out of four. In others, a long interval, sometimes six months, occurs between the first and second sickness. If the general health be not _in the least_ impaired, this need cause no anxiety. Irregularities are found in the first year or two, which often right themselves afterwards. But whenever they are associated with the _slightest_ signs of mental or bodily disorder, they demand instant and intelligent attention. It used to be supposed that the periods of the monthly sickness were in some way connected with the phases of the moon. So general is this belief even yet in France, that a learned Academician not long since thought it worth while carefully to compare over four thousand observations, to see whether they did bear any relations to the lunar phases. It is hardly worth while to add that he found none. We have known perfectly healthy young women who were ill every sixteen days, and others in whom a period of thirty-five or thirty-six days would elapse. The reasons of such differences are not clear. Some inherited peculiarity of constitution is doubtless at work. Climate is of primary importance. Travellers in Lapland, and other countries in the far north, say that the women there are not regulated more frequently than three or four times a year. Hard labor and a phlegmatic temperament usually prolong the interval between the periodical illnesses. An equal diversity prevails in reference to the _length of time_ the discharge continues. The average of a large number of cases observed in healthy women, between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five, is four days and a fraction. In a more general way, we may say from two to six days is the proper duration. Should it diverge widely from this, then it is likely some mischief is at work.