And you will want to live for the relief of man's estate. The more your
eyes open to life, the more you see how many sore hearts there are in the
world, and (besides the well-dressed sorrows which are as sore as any)
there is the pain and poverty and sin of those who have no chance in the
world; what can you do for the poor--you who have so many chances in life,
who have so much love, so many pleasures? There may not be very much open
to you when you first grow up, and you may be very busy with your
pleasures and home duties. Let your mother enjoy your pleasures, she has
been planning them for years, but do what little things you can to
discipline yourself so that by-and-by (when you are free to work) you may
be a worker worth having. It is that which makes the waiting years worth
while.

Often a girl gets tired of enjoying herself and longs for some purpose in
life, but she is tied in a hundred ways. Sometimes she loses her
aspirations, her wish to do some good in the world, and sinks down into an
idle round of small pleasures and worries. But do not you do that; rather
realize that, according as you spend your waiting time,--before you marry
or find some definite work,--such you will be when your opportunity comes:

"Be resolute and great
To keep thy muscles trained: know'st thou when Fate
Thy measure takes, or when she'll say to thee,
'I find thee worthy; do this thing for me'?"

I was talking over East London work the other day with a worker, and she
was saying that the best preparation for usefulness lay in such common
things as cooking, cutting out, musical-drill, gardening, children's
games, neat business-like letters, keeping your own accounts, a power of
small talk! All these are possible to each of you, and a resolute putting