But we are not made up of odds and ends of ancestral belongings alone. We have in ourselves something that is original, that makes us different from each other, and from all others. I have sometimes thought that we are somewhat like patchwork quilts, the parti-colored blocks being set together by some solid-colored material; or, better still, we are like "hit and miss" rag carpets, with a warp of our own individuality, filled in with a woof made of qualities and capacities of all those who have preceded us. You know, in making "hit and miss" rag carpets we take little strips and bits of various materials and all colors, and sew them together without regard to order or arrangement, and these long strips are woven back and forth in the warp until the carpet is woven, showing no set pattern, but a mingling of tints and shades that is sometimes crude and unsightly, sometimes soft and artistic. I used, in childhood, to find great delight in seeking among the blended colors in the carpet for scraps of clothing which I recognized as having belonged to father or mother, or perhaps even to grandparents. Even now, in my maturer years, I am interested in finding in myself the physical, mental or moral characteristics of those same ancestors; and you, no doubt, can do the same, while some of your traits seem to be yours entirely, constituting individual variations upon ancestral inheritances. Nature has been doing for centuries, unheeded, what the photographer of to-day thinks is a modern discovery, that is, making composite photographs of us all. Through this law of inheritance have arisen the intellectual, the moral or the criminal types of humanity, and the process is continuing; the types are becoming more and more marked, or modifying influences are being brought in to change the type. These influences are also the result of law, even though we may not be able to trace them to their cause. Knowing this, however, we begin to see that heredity is not fatality; that the power to modify the endowments of future generations is ours. To know how to employ it, we should study the law as far as we have opportunity. This subject is a large one, and no doubt you will some day want to give it a thorough investigation. Just now, however, you will have to accept my statements. I will not make them technical, but strictly practical to you as a young woman desiring that knowledge which shall best fit you for the responsibilities of future life.