for church-going. Every female thing has an inalienable right to make herself as lovely as possible; and these graceful, clever women of fashion would know as well how to make simplicity charming as does the grande dame of France, who is never more grande dame than when, in plain little bonnet, simple gown, and a bit of a fichu, she attends her church.
These bright butterflies have all the long week to flutter their magnificence in. Their lunches, dinners, teas, dances, games, yachts, links, race-courses—everyone gives occasion for glorious display. Will they not, then, be sweetly demure on Sunday for the sake of the "picture," spare their sisters the agony of craving for like beautiful apparel? for God has made them so, and they can't help wanting to be lovely, too.
Perhaps some day a woman of fashion, simply clad, will turn up her pretty nose contemptuously at splendour of dress at church service, and whisper, "What bad form!"
Then, indeed, as the tide sets her way,
she will realize her power, and the church will have many more attendants. The very poor woman will not be so cruelly humiliated, and the wage-earning girl, who puts so much of her money into finery, will have a more artistic and more suitable model to follow.
And you are beginning to think that free silver is not the only mad idea that has been put forward by a seemingly sane person. Ah, well, it's sixteen to one, you know, that this is both first and last of the church dress-reform.
To those two little maids who so anxiously inquire "if I believe prayer is of any real service, and why, since my own could not always have been answered," I can only say, they being in a minority, I have no authority to answer their question here. Perhaps, though, they may recall the fact that their loving mothers tenderly refused some of their most passionate demands in babyhood. And we are yet but children, who often pray improperly to our Father.