hands; would that not increase his responsibility?"

"Yes, if he accepted such trusts."

"Are there not more valuable possessions than dollars, stocks,
and bonds? Every one is more or less fascinated, drawn, and won by
beauty, and to the beautiful the most sacred thoughts and feelings
of the heart are continually intrusted. History and biography show
that beautiful women, if true, gentle, and unselfish, have great
power with their own sex, and almost unbounded influence over men.
Your power, therefore, is subtle, penetrating, and reaches the inner
life, the very warp and woof of character. If a beautiful statue
can ennoble and refine, a beautiful woman can accomplish infinitely
more. She can be a constant inspiration, a suggestion of the perfect
life beyond and an earnest of it. All power brings responsibility,
even that which a man achieves or buys; but surely, if one receives
Heaven's most exquisite gifts, bestowed as directly as this marvellous
beauty without, and so is made pre-eminent in power and influence,
she is under a double responsibility to use that power for good.
That a woman can take the royal gift of her own beauty, a divine
heritage, one of the most suggestive relics of Eden still left
among us, and daily sacrifice it on the poorest and meanest of
altars--her own vanity--is to me hard to understand. It is scarcely
respectable heathenism. But to use her beauty as a lure is far
worse. Do we condemn wreckers, who place false, misleading lights
upon a dangerous coast? What is every grace of a coquette, but a
false light, leading often to more sad and hopeless wreck?"

No man had ever told Lottie more plainly that she was beautiful,
than Hemstead, and yet she disliked his compliments wofully. Her