I wonder if you smoke, dear girl? There would be no use in my saying that I personally think it looks utterly unattractive to see a very young girl puffing her cigarette, because I know that I am old-fashioned and, in this, have not gone with the times--but such is my opinion. Should you not have begun to smoke yet, Caroline, put it off as long as possible, and, if you do take to it, let it be because you really like it, not for a pose, as some girls do. If you have acquired the habit already, be very careful of your teeth as you get older, and to have your hair beautifully brushed both night and morning--the smell of stale smoke in the hair and breath and clothes is so disgusting. While we are talking of personal habits and such things you will notice that quantities of girls are not particular about their hands in these days. The outdoor games and the boyish carelessness about wearing gloves have almost destroyed beautiful white hands, in the present generation, and you will often see the ugliest housemaid’s fists upon the “Lady Clara Vere de Veres,” whose mothers are famed for the beauty of their own fingers. Try to counteract by care the inevitable effect of outdoor games upon your hands, Caroline; use creams, wear gloves when it is possible, and keep your nails nicely polished. Why let one good thing spoil another? Games are good for the health, and pretty white fingers are pleasant to the sight. Indeed, whatever your personal disadvantages may be, use the greatest intelligence and get art to remedy them; do not let them slide with the casual idea that they are only youth, and that you will grow out of them. I am staying in a hotel in the South at the present moment, where there is an extraordinarily pretty young girl, whose mother has allowed her to stoop and stand all crooked. Her stockings are wrinkled and, with a snowy neck, her arms are red and blotchy, while she leans upon the table and eats in a horrible manner, with bright-red paws, holding her knife and fork ungracefully; and, last of all, her head is arranged with that awful bundle of sausage curls which I warned you about! The mother looks a charming woman, but evidently has not what the Americans call the natural “horse sense” to see that her poor child is being shamefully handicapped and will be so for years, until the necessity to remove these drawbacks strikes her own intelligence.