ions and new powers. The taste for food changes,
hinting that the system has demands hitherto unknown. Those organs we
have adverted to, called the ovaries, increase in size, as also does the
uterus. The very framework of the structure does not escape. The bones
increase in weight, and those around the hips expand, and give the
female her distinctive form, upon the perfection of which her life and
that of her children depend.

MENTAL CHANGES.

Such are the changes which strike the eye. But there are others which
are not less significant, and which demand far more urgently our
watchful heed. New thoughts, strange desires, are invading the soul. A
novel relation is assumed to the world. It is vague, misunderstood, but
disturbing all the same.

The once light-hearted girl inclines to reveries; she seeks solitude;
her mother surprises her in causeless tears; her teacher discovers an
unwonted inattention to her studies, a less retentive memory, a
disinclination to mental labor; her father misses her accustomed
playfulness; he, perhaps, is annoyed by her listlessness and inertia.
What does it all mean? What is the matter with the girl?

Mother, teacher, father, it is for you to know the answers to these
questions. You have guarded this girl through years of helpless infancy
and thoughtless childhood. At the peril of her life, and of what is of
more value than life, do not now relax your vigilance. Every day the
reaper Death reaps with his keen sickle the flowers of our land. The
mothers weep, indeed; but little do they realize that it is because they
have neglected to cherish them as was their duty, that the Lord of
Paradise has taken them back unto Himself.

THE COMPLETION OF PUBERTY.

The symptoms increase until at length the system has acquired the
necessary strength, and furnished itself with reserve forces enough to
complete its transformation. Then the monthly flow commences.

In thoroughly healthy girls it continues to recur at regular intervals,
from twenty-five to thirty days apart. This is true of about three out
of four. In others, a long interval, sometimes six months, occurs
between the first and second sickness. If the general health be not _in
the least_ impaired, this need cause no anxiety. Irregularities are
found in the first year or two, which often right themselves afterwards.
But whenever they are associated with the _slightest_ signs of mental or
bodily disorder, they demand instant and intel