We do love beauty at first sight, and we do cease to love it if it is not accompanied by amiable qualities.

There is a divine attribute of man-kind, which unfortunately is not neither possessed nor cultivated by everyone, and yet without it many other gifts seem as nothing. While speaking to a girl friend a few days ago about a man whom we both agreed was decidedly clever; clever much above the ordinary run of mortals, but----! She looked at me, and I looked at her, and she said, "Well, you say it, what is it about C--- that we do not like? I can see that he has some great detriment in your eyes, as well as mine!" I said, "Conceit of himself and inability to conceal it." "Well," said the fluffy haired girl, "I've often thought that was what ailed him. You know what a brilliant talker he is? And you know, too, how little opportunity myself and the girls have had to improve our minds. It has taken all the time we would spare from sleeping and eating to get a bed to sleep on, and something to satisfy the inner woman. C---comes in, and begins at once to talk about things of which we know nothing, and he does it in such a grandiloquent manner that we feel our ignorance very keenly. If I was not sure that he was a gentleman, I should say that rather enjoyed making us feel like very small potatoes, in fact, that he was a bit of a 'show-off'." "My dear that is exactly what he is. He has got plenty of knowledge, but precious little wisdom. He lacks tact. Instead of accommodating his conversation to suit you or whoever he is with he gets out his, his goods--the very best--and parades them as a commercial traveller would his samples."

"Yes," she said with a puzzled frown, "but he cannot help feeling his own superiority I suppose." "Well, he might at least help showing that he feels it," I retorted. Of course every clever person knows the firmness of the ground they stand upon. It is impossible to do anything really well without a consciousness of ability but the very cleverest and brightest of people spoil themselves by openly displayed conceit and lack of tact, just as a girl who too frankly admires her sweet face loses half her loveliness in the eyes of the world--particularly of her own sex."

People who are interested in the teaching of temperance in our Public schools will have an opportunity of hearing two excellent talks on the subject. On the evenings of April 9th and 11th Mrs. Mary Hanchett Hunt will address the Ontario Educational Association on the continuance of temperance teaching in the Public schools. Mrs. Hunt should have her subject well in hand, as she is National Superintendent of Scientific Temperance Instruction in the American schools. She is a New England woman, a native of Canaan, Conn. Mrs. Hunt is an exceptionally well educated woman, having studied at Amena College, New York, and graduated a few years later from the Patapsco Institute, Baltimore. Her first deep interest in temperance work was caused by hearing Rev. Jas. Cook's celebrated lecture on "Alcohol and the Brain." After this several years were spent in close scientific study of the temperance question. For twenty years Mrs. Hanchett Hunt has been lecturing in all of the States, and through her instrumentality temperance instruction has been made compulsory in all the States, except Georgia and Utah. Mrs. Hunt is editor of a school physiological journal and has had the honor of wording the laws dealing with her subject in the different States as well as setting the standard for the many series of graded text books issued to meet the demands of these laws.

If there is one thing a woman dreads more than a gray hair it is a wrinkle. Indeed it may be truthfully said she would welcome the former if it would ward off the latter, for by artificial means gray hair may be concealed, but a wrinkle that has become wonted is a fixture. She who would not wrinkle must control her emotions. She must not scowl or she will get a little furrow between her brows, and a similar furrow will be caused if she does not put on glasses at the first indications of nearsightedness. She must not laugh, or she will bring crows feet about her eyes and lines about her mouth. She must not go into the brilliant light without a sunshade or a dark veil or she will certainly get little puckers from screwing up her lips. No matter how deeply she feels she must maintain a calm unruffled exterior, for every wave of emotion leaves its trace. The face is a mass of muscles covered with flesh and cuticle, and it is the diminishing of the flesh that causes the little rifts and hollows between the muscles to become visible, or the muscles themselves to relax and let the flesh drop. On this account the plump woman remains unwrinkled much longer than her slender sister, but if she attempts to lessen her plumpness--woe betide her! Then, indeed, she will be dismayed, for the cuticle, bereft of the supporting flesh, will hang in most unbecoming folds. The loss of the teeth is another productive source of wrinkles, and if many are lost and not replaced by artificial ones the entire contour of the face will change. The loss of the front teeth bringing the gums together, lessens the length of the face in front, and apparently lengthens the nose. It also causes deep folds at the side of the mouth. The loss of the back teeth produces wrinkles from the ears to the lower part of the jaw and causes the checks to sink in. A woman, unless she has passed through much care, grief or illness must not show wrinkles until her forty-fifth or fiftieth year. To give firmness to loose skin and to prevent wrinkles the paste used by seventeenth-century court beauties is said to be excellent, and it certainly has the virtue of being absolutely harmless. It is made of the whites of four eggs boiled in rose water, then mixed with half an ounce of powdered alum and half an ounce of oil of sweet almonds. The mixture should be beaten until it forms a smooth paste, and can then be perfumed with any delicate essential oil. The paste should be rubbed thickly on the face at night and allowed to remain until morning when it is to be washed off with luke warm water in which is a little simple tincture of benzoin.

Another application which is said to effectually conceal small wrinkles is made by boiling gum benzoin in spirits of wine until a thick, fragrant mixture is formed. Ten drops of this in a tumblerful of water, if used to bathe the face and arms, will leave a delightful fragrance. The moisture should not be wiped off but allowed to dry on the skin, when it forms a kind of enamel. For the wrinkle between the eyes a tiny strip of surgeon's plaster may be applied every night it being placed in such a way as to draw the skin away at each side producing smooth surface where the furrow usually is. Do not rub cold cream or Vaseline between the eyebrows to eradicate the wrinkle or a fine crop of hair will be the result, for just at that point a hirsute growth is apt to appear on the slightest encouragement. If crosswise wrinkles appear on the forehead braid the hair back tightly from the face at night, and brush it smartly back two or three times a day. It should be worn in pompadour effect or straight back from the face to tighten the skin. And in the meantime the first mentioned paste should be applied every night. Washing the face in hot or even warm water is sure to produce wrinkles even on a young skin unless a final sponging is given with cold water, to brace the muscles. Pure soap is not injurious, and a rough towel is to be preferred to a soft one, as the friction causes the blood to flow and thus the muscles are strengthened and are made to increase in size, filling out the hollows. By the way, it may be well to state that excessive tea drinking will assist in causing wrinkles. Facial massage is to be highly recommended. Not only does it help to strengthen the muscles, but it causes the skin to become smooth and healthy. It must be applied in a scientific, gentle manner, however, or the skin will be bruised instead of benefited. The massage may be given with the hand, with a small rubber brush especially made for the purpose, or with what is known as a massage roller, also of rubber. Cold cream, white Vaseline, olive oil or whatever skin food is used should be applied to the face after the massage, not during it, for the rubbing or rolling causes the blood to rise to the surface and the pores to open, so that the skin food is readily absorbed, whereas if it be rubbed on the skin before the massage, it causes the hand or roller to slip, thus lessening the effect of the friction. Pure, sweet cream--not cold cream--is as good skin food as one could ask. For wrinkles across the forehead rub from the eyebrows to the roots of the hair--that is to say, crosswise of the wrinkles. Use the sides rather than the tips of the fingers and exert a gentle but firm pressure, but take care not to irritate the skin, which, is somewhat sensitive over the frontal bone.

Wrinkles at the corner of the eyes must be rolled or rubbed cross wise, but with stronger pressure exerted on the upper ward motion than on the downward one. Wrinkles each side of the mouth should be rubbed backward towards the ears. When the massage is being given the mouth should be firmly closed. The same movement should also be used for the folds under the chin. Fullness below the eyes may often be remedied by rubbing with a gentle backward movement, but as the bagging usually is caused by weakness of the system rather than of the muscles a physician should be consulted if the condition continue.

Denver, March 23--Miss Lizzie G. Wallace, a pretty young woman of Adair, Ill., is going to make herself a home on Pike's Peak, and brave all the terrors and horrors of life so far above the ordinary mortal. She seems to be possessed of lots of nerve as well as a goodly amount of muscle, gained especially for this unusual undertaking by a year's rigid training in an eastern gymnasium. Just now that is her particular stock in trade, coupled with a short bicycle suit, a wheel and a small amount of money left her by an old aunt who raised this aspiring young women to the height she deemed necessary both in stature and social standing, but the desire to live a whole summer on top of the peak in a house built by her own hands shows that the ward wants to be raised still further.

She proposed to have a sort of roughly constructed dwelling of huge, irregular stones, piled together heterogeneously, and of course, made with an eye for sufficient comfort and protection from the fierce storms which sweep the sides of the peak. The experience for the records of the United States Signal Service tell of a horrible week spent by Sergeant O'Keefe while holding the station in the capacity of observer. Mountain rats, great, huge, bristly things the size of porcupines, are said to haunt these rocks, and if the veracious chronicler is to be believed these mountain denizens carried off the body of his dead child. This monster rodent only issues forth at nighttime, and Sergeant O'Keefe's life was only saved by turning day into night, sleeping while his persecutors slept and getting up with the dark and fighting them for twelve hours. Succeeding in keeping them at bay for a week, until the storm abated and his heliograph signals of distress brought him relief from Colorado Springs. The gallant sergeant estimates that he killed at least 200 of these ferocious mountain rats, and that alone saved him. For, like a pack of wolves, the sharp-toothed assailants fell upon the dead bodies and satisfied their cravings for blood.

If the ordinary woman trembles at the sight of a mouse she may well draw her skirts closer and shiver in horror as she thinks of this courageous attempt of Miss Wallace to hold the fort against the rats. Speaking of her plans, Miss Wallace told her reasons for leaving Chicago. "I am just 23 and I am my own boss since Aunt Lizzie Prescott died. I lived on a farm with her seven miles out from Adair. The dear old soul left me everything she had. I was an orphan, and I was everything to her that she was to me. The estate is all settled up now, and I have got enough to bring me in a nice little income and make me feel independent. I always was independent, and that is why I left Chicago against the wishes of Uncle Ed. I went to live with him when Aunt Lizzie died. I left against his wishes, and here I am, going down to Colorado Springs. As soon as the snow gets off I am going up the peak to stay all summer. "I am going to build my own house," Miss Wallace continued as she stretched forth an arm for the writer to feel. "You see, I have a little muscle, and what's the reason I can't pile one rock on another and build myself just the sort of romantic grotto I have dreamed about for years? Then I can get a carpet and a cot and a little camp stool, and provisions and a cat and with my trusty rifle and revolver I will defy the world."

-Eugene Field