I hope you were not very bored by my last and rather serious letter, Caroline. I was obliged to begin in that solid way, so that we could be sure of our points of view being the same for future talks, but in this missive I am going to write about something quite different, and almost as important--your manners! The tendency of the present day is to do away with all gentle things, and among them courtesy has gone by the board, so that to see anyone still with beautiful and gracious manners is a thing to be remarked upon and rejoiced over. And I want you to be among this small company of the survival of other days! The modern young woman is so innately selfish that, as a rule, her manners are only good when some definite momentary gain to herself makes their display worth while. She is too short-sighted to look ahead and see their value, and she is no longer a proud person remembering what is due to herself, and, therefore, that good manners ought to be the stamp of her breeding. She is often as primitive as a young savage, with a smattering of a fair mental education on top. Numbers of kind-hearted mothers about forty years ago began to think that their own training had been horribly stiff and cruel, and gave a much greater license to their offspring. Deportment masters and mistresses grew to be less and less in vogue, and ridicule was cast upon the rules that had been in practice for every girl entering society. People began to laugh at numbers of things, a sense of humor was reviving, and it attacked the methods and fashions of “young ladyhood.” The children of those days, who are now mothers of the present young girls, went a step further, with the best intentions, and augmented, by the craze for exercise and out-of-door games, the effect of the lax rules of deportment, so that now one hardly ever sees a really gracious and graceful young girl, and some of them are the most unattractive specimens of youthful females in consequence. Now, Caroline, I want you to be a cunning creature and combine the methods of the old and the new. If your tastes incline to violent outdoor games, assiduously cultivate beautiful and gracious manners as well, so that the young men you play with, while admiring your skill, will not feel they can treat you as “another fellow,” hardly with courtesy, and with no consideration.