with a torn sleeve, but the arm
beneath it was white."

Somebody else will say that neatness is, after all, a luxury beyond the
means of poor people. How can you be clean when you do dirty work? It
takes either time or money. I know a wealthy lady who used to be poor,
who says that for years she could never afford as much washing as she
thought indispensable, and she was too much of an invalid to do her own
washing. Nevertheless, she was always a lady and always looked like one,
though her dresses were sometimes absurdly old-fashioned. I should say
that her love of neatness was so strong that she sacrificed less
important things to it, and always did reach a high standard, though not
the standard of luxury.

I know a gentleman whose lot has been to do the heaviest and dirtiest
work on a ranch for years, and yet his hands to the tips of his
fingernails look as if he had just come from a manicure's. I suppose he
has been determined that his hands should be clean and has been willing
to take the trouble to keep them so. Still, we ought to make some
allowance for poverty in our estimate of neatness. "Why are you building
an addition to your house?" asked one lady of another. "Oh, for Mr. B.'s
tooth-brushes," replied Mrs. B, carelessly. "When a man has been brought
up as Mr. B. has been, his tooth-brushes take up a great deal of room."

I have said all this of outward purity, because it is easier to speak of
this, but it is still more the purity of mind and character which
distinguishes a lady. In some classes of society even in America girls
are kept almost isolated chiefly to preserve their purity of thought.
Purity, even the purity of ignorance, is beautiful, but such purity has
not deep foundations, and I cannot think that girls are best guarded in
this way. Nevertheless, purity is so essential to a lady that such girls
will always be counted as ladies.

The love of beauty is characteristic of a real lady. This is recognized
in some measure. Girls are taught dancing and music and something of
art. They listen to good music even if they are not musicians, and they
look at good pictures if they cannot paint them. This is partly a matter
of fashion, but it has a genuine root. And so with the beauty of dress,
and of the home. Both these ought to be beautiful, but as few women are
artistic enough to design anything, they follow the fashion. In this way
they escape criticism from their companions who are like them. But the