“I was glad, and willing to accept anything, and in replying mentioned infants’ wear and children’s clothes as most needed. “In return came a large box with every sort of child’s garments, a roll of flannel, and a complete infant’s wardrobe of the nicest material and most beautifully made--embroidered flannel, dresses prettily tucked and edged--things lovely to look at. “An immense load was taken off my mind. I was actually filled with delight whenever I thought of these delicate, pretty things, and how comfortable my baby would be. I went about my tasks after this in a spirit of love and thanksgiving. You see Paul! He has been my consolation since his babyhood. No temptation could make him less positively good, less conscientious, or less affectionate than he is.” As this large-hearted woman related to me these interesting facts, I could not help wishing that the kind ladies who had been instrumental in bringing about so happy a result, as well as the gentleman who had given the impetus to their benevolence, could know how valuable had been the effects. KLEPTOMANIA. The word kleptomania is used to indicate the habit of stealing, by those persons with whom wealth precludes the ordinary temptation to the act. Certain women of position are regularly watched by clerks in stores because they are known to carry off laces, ribbons, etc., when they fancy themselves unobserved. Such women have very inferior minds independent of this one vice. In the mother of such an one the desire to get and to keep things of material value, must have been exceedingly prominent. Many an honest mother mourns over the unscrupulous dishonesty of her son, while all unwittingly she conveyed to him the overpowering impulse; or there was not rigid probity enough in her own life to overrule the dishonest tendency conveyed by her husband. In the first case, her desire to get and to keep would be harmless and justifiable as a temporary state of mind, if she were not pregnant. She knows, although she does not often dwell on the fact, that she is working assiduously for legitimate ends. But as she is, in truth, mainly engrossed in getting and saving, thus using a very limited part of her mind, she does the harm. The selfish, grasping spirit increases on itself through generations of similar experience. On the same principle, the _remarkable_ singer is the product of two or three generations of love of song. A childish inclination to appropriate that which belongs to another, yields readily to wise treatment, where the intellect, the nature, is not cramped and dull. SPECULATIVE INTELLECT. The habit of reasoning independently, of investigating without reference to authority, is by no means a common one. Most people have their thinking done for them, and are content to quote their clergyman, their doctor, or their great-grandmother, as the case may require. We say a man or woman is “original” when they seek Truth wherever she may be found, regardless of popular opinion.