ar at that time of
life, than become a dead-weight, through constant ill health, on her
husband in after life.

So of the unwholesome excitement of a city life. There is a poison in
crowds, and it acts in a thousand unseen ways. With the ceaseless noise,
the broken sleep, the late hours, the impure air, and the nervous
tension which all these produce, it requires no strength of imagination
to perceive that the city is not the best place for the delicate girl.

We have mentioned _mental troubles_. Perhaps there are, among those who
read this, some superficial enough to smile at the possibility of
serious mental troubles in girlhood. There are, we know, many unfeeling
enough to give them no attention when they do see them. But we have an
unfailing witness in the sympathetic heart of the mother. She has not
forgotten how bitter were the crosses of her own younger years; she
knows that the sensitive soul of woman wakes early to the keenest
appreciation of grief as well as joy. If anything, years blunt us, and
the sorrows of youth are often the bitterest of our lives.

Let the mother, therefore, read with her wondrous maternal instinct the
trials of her daughter; let her become her most intimate confidant, and
pour upon the wounded spirit that balm which none but a woman, and that
woman a mother, knows how to apply. Such a relationship of mother and
daughter is no less natural and wholesome than it is beautiful.

WHEN THE CHANGES ARE DELAYED.

In health an equal interval, or one nearly equal, elapses between the
monthly illnesses. Often in the spring, however, their appearance
anticipates the expected date of their occurrence, and in the autumn
they are frequently a day or two late. These variations are owing to the
temperature, heat accelerating and cold retarding the process of
ovulation.

Such slight irregularities need not give rise to anxiety; but if there
is an unwonted delay, combined with other symptoms of ill-health, as
headache, pain in the side and back, a sense of languor and exhaustion,
loss of appetite, and nausea, and fitful sleep, then it is important
that some steps be taken to bring on the courses. For this purpose,
soaking the feet in hot-mustard water, a tumbler of hot ginger or
camomile-tea, a brisk walk, or a gentle laxative will generally be found
sufficient. Gently kneading the lower abdomen and loins is a familiar,
and if intelligently done, a safe means for the same purpose.

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