d salvation for the race lie dormant in your dormant
powers, surely it would throw off the deference that masks contempt and
give you the right hand of royal fellowship.

And if, in the world just as it is, girls did but know themselves! If
they did but know how delightful, how noble and ennobling, how gracious
and consoling and helpful, they might be, how wearied eyes might love
to rest upon them, how sore hearts might be healed, and weak hearts
strengthened, by the fragrance of their unfolding youth! There is not
one girl in a thousand, North or South, who might not be lovely and
beloved. I do not reckon on a difference of race in North and South,
as the manner of some is. The great mass of girls whom one meets in
schools and public places are the ones who in the South would be the
listless, ragged daughters of poverty. The great mass of Southern
girls that we see are the cherished and cultivated upper classes, and
answer only to our very best. Like should always be compared with like.
And I am not afraid to compare our best, high-born or lowly, with the
best of any class or country. They have, besides all that is
beautiful, a substantial substratum of sound sense, high principle,
practical benevolence, and hidden resources. To behold them, they
sparkle like diamonds. To know them, they are beneficent as iron. Let
all the others emulate these. Let none be content with being
intelligent. Let them determine also to be full of grace.

Among the girls that I saw on my journey who did not please me, there
were several who did,--several of whom occasional glimpses promised
pleasant things, if only there were opportunity to grasp them,--and two
in particular who have left an abiding picture in my gallery. Let me
from pure delight linger over the portraiture.

Two sisters taken a-pleasuring by their father,--the younger anywhere
from fourteen to eighteen years old, the elder anywhere from sixteen to
twenty;--this tall and slender, with a modest, sensitive, quiet,
womanly dignity; that animated, unconscious, and entirely girlish;--the
one with voice low and soft, the other low and clear. The father was
an educated and accomplished Christian gentleman. The relations
between the two were most interesting. His demeanor towards them was a
charming combination of love and courtesy. Theirs to him was at once
confiding and polite. The best rooms, the best seats, the best
positions, were not assumed by them or yield