These precautions may seem burdensome, but they all have been practiced by those who prize beauty. Nothing is so attractive, so suggestive of purity of mind and excellence of body, as a clear, fine-grained skin. Strong color is not desirable. Tints, rather than colors, best please the refined eye in the complexion. Some mothers are so anxious to secure this grace for their daughters that they are kept on the strictest diet from childhood. The most dazzling Parian could not be more beautiful than the cheek of a child I once saw who was kept on oatmeal porridge for this effect. At a boarding-school, I remember, a fashionable mother gave strict injunctions that her daughter should touch nothing but brown bread and syrup. This was hard fare; but the carmine lips and magnolia brow of the young lady were the envy of her schoolmates, who, however, were not courageous enough to attempt such a régime for themselves. CHAPTER II. Care of the Hair.--Children’s Hair.--When to Cut it.--Ammonia Washes.--Glycerine and Ammonia.--Pomades.--How to Brush the Hair.--Cutting the Ends.--German Method of Treating the Hair.--Southernwood Pomade.--Hair-Dyes.--Dyeing the Eyebrows and Eyelashes.--Superfluous Hair.--Depilatories.--Washes for the Eyelashes and Eyebrows. St. Paul approved himself no less a connoisseur of female beauty than a censor of decorum when he wrote, “If a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her.” This is in no wise inconsistent with the other apostolic passage which discourages ornate hair-dressing, for abundant shining hair needs less care to arrange than a scanty crop that must be disposed to the best advantage. The woman whose magnificent chevelure reaches to her waist, thick as one’s wrist when tightly bound, needs no braid nor cataract, finger-puff nor snow-curl, nor band of gold or amber to crown herself. Every girl ought to have such hair. Mothers should remember that such gifts of nature form a dowry which has no little weight in the incidents of a woman’s life, and should cultivate assiduously the locks of their daughters. It is not best to keep them closely cut: after five years they should never be touched by scissors, save to clip the ends once a month, as hereafter explained, but should be smoothly braided in long Marguerite plaits, the most convenient style, unless the mother is ambitious of seeing her pet’s hair in curls. Hardly any locks will resist good discipline, if taken in the downy stage of infancy and submitted to papillotes. It is a mistaken notion that a luxuriant growth of hair in childhood weakens the head. Nature is not in the habit of providing superfluities. The Breton women are noted for their magnificent hair, which is allowed to grow from childhood. The barbarity of the fine comb should be abolished in civilized nurseries, and a daily or semi-weekly wash with ammonia or soap substituted, with a thorough brushing afterward. A child’s head is