made a move after a reasonable amount of talk, the others would be
sensible too. And so you repent and force yourself to get up very
punctually the next morning, not seeing that this is on the principle that
two wrongs make a right. It is your duty to get up in good time, but it is
also a duty to get sufficient sleep. I know you have a more comfortable
feeling when you have punished yourself,--you feel that you took the
self-indulgence and you want to pay for it. This sounds fair and honest,
but it is not, because you pay for it with the health and strength that
God gave you to use for Him. Instead of the satisfactory scourge and hair
shirt of rising betimes next morning, try the more commonplace penance of
going to bed in proper time the next night, without any dawdling. So many
girls do things in a dreamy, dawdling way, that must be a sore trial to
those about them: if a thing has to be done, you should do it in a quick,
purpose-like way, and not waste your own time and other people's temper. A
girl will placidly tell you, "I'm always slow, it's my way," never
realizing that "ways" may be very objectionable. We think it dishonest in
workmen that there should be a difference between a man who works by time
and one who works by the piece: you blame the workman who spends twice as
much of his master's time as he need, but, when you dawdle, you spend
_your_ Master's time: getting through with things quickly and "deedily" is
a matter of habit, and the Virtuous Woman practises it in everything she
does.

"_Her hands hold the distaff_." The Virtuous Woman will not be satisfied
until she knows how to make a dress and do plain work; not that, having
acquired the knowledge, she will necessarily use it, for a woman with
brains and education can employ her time to more purpose, and can give
employment to poorer women at her gate, by putting out her work. It is
burying her talent in the ground if she employs, in making her children's
frocks, the time which should be spent in cultivating her mind, so as to