how good the Sisters of Charity are, and how much we owe to them;
but all these professional pieties (except so far as distinction or
association may be necessary for effectiveness of work) are in their
spirit wrong, and in practice merely plaster the sores of disease
that ought never to have been permitted to exist; encouraging at the
same time the herd of less excellent women in frivolity, by leading
them to think that they must either be good up to the black
standard, or cannot be good for anything. Wear a costume, by all
means, if you like; but let it be a cheerful and becoming one; and
be in your heart a Sister of Charity always, without either veiled
or voluble declaration of it.

As I pause, before ending my preface--thinking of one or two more
points that are difficult to write of--I find a letter in 'The
Times,' from a French lady, which says all I want so beautifully,
that I will print it just as it stands:-


SIR,--It is often said that one example is worth many sermons.
Shall I be judged presumptuous if I point out one, which seems to me
so striking just now, that, however painful, I cannot help dwelling
upon it?

It is the share, the sad and large share, that French society and
its recent habits of luxury, of expenses, of dress, of indulgence in
every kind of extravagant dissipation, has to lay to its own door in
its actual crisis of ruin, misery, and humiliation. If our
MENAGERES can be cited as an example to English housewives, so,
alas! can other classes of our society be set up as an example--NOT
to be followed.