The form of address, you observe, is not arbitrary. But you must be polite. You are soliciting a favor. And you must certainly send the envelope addressed to yourself, and stamped. Always enclose return postage in a letter which asks a friend to do you a kindness, to send you information, or in any way to oblige you. One little two-cent stamp is not very much to either your correspondent or yourself, but postage-stamps soon count up when one has a great many letters to write and answer.
Another girlie says, "Please tell me how soon I ought to answer my friend's letter—the same day, or the next, or in a week, or what?" Bless your dear heart, my child, answer as soon as you please, and if you are writing to somebody you love, who loves you, the sooner the better. A lady who has a large correspondence tells me that she always replies to her friends while their letters are fresh in her mind, before the glow and tenderness have faded. It is, as a rule much easier to answer a letter when you have recently read it than when it has been put aside for days and weeks. Still, much depends on the style of the correspondence, and on the tie which binds you to your friend.
I have lately been reading some very remarkable letters. They are published in a book called Letters from the New Hebrides, and are by Maggie Whitecross Paton, the wife of the great missionary Dr. John G. Paton. I think these letters are very nearly perfect, so bright, so chatty, so full of simple goodness. Mrs. Paton has the gift of seeing things, and then telling about them so that we see with her eyes.
I wish I might impress on you the importance of answering questions which may have been asked by your correspondent. Before closing a letter which is by way of reply, why not read over the one which calls it forth, and make sure that you have not omitted anything concerning which you have been asked to give information.
Postal cards should be used exclusively for purposes of business, the exception being that when on a journey it is a good plan to carry a postal card, addressed before you leave home, pencil on it the news of your safe arrival, and mail it in the station before going to your journey's end. This often gives the home people news of you some hours in advance of the letter you write at the first opportunity after reaching your friend's house.
No letter should ever be marred by excuses and apologies.
TRAVELLING STONES IN NEVADA.
The curious "travelling stones" of Australia are paralleled in Nevada. They are described as being perfectly round, about as large as a walnut, and of an ivory nature. When distributed about on the floor, table, or any smooth surface within two or three feet of each other, they immediately commence travelling toward each other, and meet at a common centre, and there lie huddled in a bunch like eggs in a nest. A single stone removed to a distance of four feet, upon being released, returns to the heap, but if taken away as much as five feet remains motionless. It is needless to say that they are largely composed of magnetic iron ore.