"Now it's just with yourself," the lecture would begin with, "whether you are to be a jolly-hearted, wholesome-looking woman or a tailor-made gown with a bundle of nerves inside of it. No matter what comes, don't make yourself wretched by fretting. Every one has troubles. You can't escape them. Sometimes they come with a sweep-like tornadoes gone mad, and you'll say to yourself: 'My heavens! I wonder if I'll live through it all?' But you will, and between you and me, my dear, it's just as well to come out of the battle with a smiling face as with eight additional crow's feet and a new scolding lock of gray hair. Just say to yourself: 'I will not grind my teeth because the man next to me in the street car is chewing a toothpick. I am not responsible for his lack of manners. I positively refuse to have fits because the woman in the flat next to mine plays the flute eight hours a day. If it's convenient I'll move; if it isn't I'll not make existence a daylight nightmare.' "School yourself!" I will continue. "Get lots of starch in you and a backbone that is a backbone! Don't fall down in a heap and mope over things you can't help. The agreeable things in life are as rare as sage-brush growing in Gotham, while the disagreeable is bobbing up eternally. So brace up, my friend, and make the best of it. Discipline yourself. Keep your mind fresh and bright, and your body strong and healthy. If you have hard work to do then do it with the least possible expenditure of worry and nerve-force. Be in the open air as much as you can, and above everything else dwell not on the unhealthy state of your nerves. Let self-mastery be your shibboleth and 'no nerves' your prayer." PERFUMES "Oh, how much more doth beauty beauteous seem, By that sweet ornament which truth doth give! The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem, For that sweet odor which doth in it live." --_Shakespeare._ Women love delicate perfumes as they do silk stockings and violets. It's just "born in 'em," like their deep-rooted horror of mice and bills and burglars. From the time when the baby girl sniffs the sweetness of the powder puff as it fluffs about her soft, pretty neck until the white-haired lady lovingly fondles the lavender sachets that lie between the folds of her time-yellowed wedding gown, she loves sweet odors. The true gentlewoman never uses strong perfumes, yet her hats and clothing and handkerchiefs always send forth a faint scent of fragrant flowers. The odor is so very slight that it does not suggest the dashing on of perfume, but, instead, bespeaks scrupulous cleanliness of body and garments, with perhaps an added suggestion of the soft winds that blow over a clover field. No perfume at all is far better than too much, for who does not look with suspicious eyes upon the woman who, when passing one on the street, seems to be in an invisible vapor of white rose or jockey club--strong enough to work on the streets?