e is one that carries so much of the
writer's personality that she seems to be sitting beside us, looking at us
directly and talking just as she really would, could she have come on a
magic carpet, instead of sending her proxy in ink-made characters on mere
paper.

Let us suppose we have received one of those perfect letters from Mary,
one of those letters that seem almost to have written themselves, so
easily do the words flow, so bubbling and effortless is their spontaneity.
There is a great deal in the letter about Mary, not only about what she
has been doing, but what she has been thinking, or perhaps, feeling. And
there is a lot about us in the letter--nice things, that make us feel
rather pleased about something that we have done, or are likely to do, or
that some one has said about us. We know that all things of concern to us
are of equal concern to Mary, and though there will be nothing of it in
actual words, we are made to feel that we are just as secure in our corner
of Mary's heart as ever we were. And we finish the letter with a very
vivid remembrance of Mary's sympathy, and a sense of loss in her absence,
and a longing for the time when Mary herself may again be sitting on the
sofa beside us and telling us all the details her letter can not but leave
out.

=THE LETTER NO WOMAN SHOULD EVER WRITE=

The mails carry letters every day that are so many packages of TNT should
their contents be exploded by falling into wrong hands. Letters that
should never have been written are put in evidence in court rooms every
day. Many can not, under any circumstances, be excused; but often silly
girls and foolish women write things that sound quite different from what,
they innocently, but stupidly, intended.

Few persons, except professional writers, have the least idea of the value
of words and the effect that they produce, and the thoughtless letters of
emotional women and underbred men add sensation to news items in the press
almost daily.

Of course the best advice to a young girl who is impelled to write letters
to men, can be put in one word, _don't_!

However, if you are a young girl or woman, and are determined to write
letters to an especial--or any other--man, no matter how innocent your
intention may be, there are some things you must remember--remember so
intensely that no situation in life, no circumstances, no temptation, can
ever make you forget. They are a few set rules, not of etiquette, but of
the