tles "Honorable" and "Professor." The
scholastic titles are also abbreviated by the proper initials, as
A.M., M.D., LL.D., following the name. The names of months, of states,
the words "County" and "Post Office," when used on the superscription
are also abbreviated.

The use of A.M., M., P.M., to mark the divisions of the day, technical
abbreviations, and the usual e.g., i.e., viz., etc., are too familiar
to the users to need mention. Further than the above, brevity is _not_
always the soul of wit.

The letter itself, as a whole, is now to be considered, and to
facilitate its writing there should be some one corner in every home
devoted to this purpose. The incentive to letter-writing is always
damped, the happy thought we would send our friend takes flight, if we
must find the pens upstairs, the paper down, the ink bottle in the
pantry, empty or not, as the case may be, and our patience wherever it
may be after the search is ended.

[Illustration: A SCRAP OF A LETTER.]

Letters would be more frequently written, more punctually answered,
and half the unreasonable dread of writing done away with, were this
matter attended to properly. Let the writing desk stand in some
well-lighted corner of sitting, dining, or "mother's" room, and let it
be stored with all articles necessary to the exigencies of
correspondence. Should the desk prove beyond the depth of the family
purse, then let its substitute be found in a firm, good-sized table or
stand, with a drawer where necessary supplies may be kept. Two or
more sizes of note paper, unruled, with envelopes to match, for the
elders of the household; writing tablets and commercial note, together
with plain envelopes, for the school-children and everyday uses; a
good dictionary, a tray with pen rack and inkstand thereon, and a
goodly supply of pens, will complete a corner that will do more toward
the family education in good breeding and culture than any other
expenditure that can be made, and will render letter-writing the
pleasure it should be, instead of the dread it too often is.

If one possesses a permanent address, street, number and city may,
with great propriety, be engraved on the paper at the top of the
sheet. If this is not done the address should always be written
clearly on all letters. It is too much to expect one's friends to
remember the private addresses of all their correspondents, and time
is too precious to be spent searching out some missing letter in que