the fogs, this
other at the sunshine; this one suggests snow for a change, and this
other begs for a thunderstorm to clear the atmosphere.

And so on and so forth. No wonder the bewildered Clerk jumps up at last
and over-turns the table, letters and all, and audibly expresses a
desire to let all the winds loose upon the world at once, to revel and
tear and do as they like, to bring blinding snow from the far north and
drenching rains from the torrid zone, to order a select assortment of
thunderstorms from the Cape of Good Hope, and a healthy tornado from the
Indian Ocean. But he thinks better of it, burns all the letters, and
goes quietly on with his day's duty.

We see, then, that no matter what state of body of mind we may be in, we
cannot get weather to order. We really commit an error, if nothing
worse, in asking for weather to suit us.

We cannot alter our climate. December and January will bring their
frosts and snows without asking our permission; easterly or
nor'-easterly winds will prevail in the spring months; March will
bluster, April will weep; May will smile through her tears by day and
freeze us with her frosts at night, and July will stupefy us with
thunderstorms, and August scorch us with heat one day and drench us to
the skin the next.

Now I am happy to say that a very large percentage of the readers of THE
GIRL'S OWN PAPER are so healthy in lungs and in nerves, and so
stout-hearted and strong-limbed, that it is, as a rule, a matter of
entire indifference to them how the wind blows or how the weather is.
But all are not so, and it will seem a matter of surprise for the really
robust to be told that many girls are so delicately constituted that
they actually can tell if the wind is from the east before they draw the
blind and look out. It is for this section of our girls that I am
writing to-day. They may not be invalids, but may simply labour under a
great susceptibility to atmospheric changes.

Such as these will be glad to be told that there is every possibility of
their growing out of this disagreeable susceptibility, much depending
upon how they use and treat themselves when young. Spring winds are very
hard upon those who are subject to chest or throat irritation--in other
words, to common colds--and I must take this opportunity of entreating
girls of this class never to neglect a cold. Why? Because one cold on
top of another, as the saying is, will certainly result in the end in
thickening