both of these young women gained the goal of their hopes and ambitions:  an introduction to this brilliant and cultivated circle of people through certain literary clubs.  And furthermore, both secured an invitation to read a paper before the same literary society during the same winter.  The first-named young lady was visiting friends, while the second had secured a position as teacher.  When the first young lady appeared before the society, her dress of velvet, point lace, and diamonds, was so striking as to be obtrusive.  Her paper was fairly good, but contained nothing of any permanent value.  Her self-consciousness and evident desire to be conspicuous had the effect of repelling the earnest and thoughtful men and women who composed the society.  Her essay and herself were alike quietly dropped; and to this day she cannot understand why.  She calls the members of the society proud, haughty, and exclusive, and denounces the city where these people live as pedantic, disagreeable, and unsocial.  Before this same club came our quiet, unostentatious, plain young friend of the toilsome life.  Her dress was as plain as her face, but her paper was rich in information and filled with the results of a deep and earnest observation.  Around her gathered the good men and women who knew how to appreciate such a spirit, and from thenceforward she was one of them.  Every winter since the reading of her first essay I have found her name among the list of those who are leaders in the world of thought and of benevolent action.  With pride in the success, of a genuine Western girl, I have often observed her name among the invited guests present at receptions given to distinguished authors and philanthropists both of our own country and of Europe.  Why did she succeed against such odds, when the other failed with all her advantages?  Simply because she was possessed of the true, deep, thorough genuine culture, both of mind and heart, which alone associates, the best people together.  To her, “plain living and high thinking” was a life-long practice, and she was at home and happy with the good and the learned.

Would you be prepared to attain a like reward?  Cultivate her spirit; imitate her example.

WE TWO ALONE IN EUROPE.

By MARY L. NINDE.  Illustrated from Original Designs.

12MO., 348 PAGES.  PRICE $1.50.

The foreign travels which gave rise to this volume were of a novel and perhaps unprecedented kind.  Two young American girls started for “the grand tour” with the father of one of them, and, he being compelled to return home from London, they were courageous enough to continue their journeyings alone.  They spent two years in travel—­going as far north as the North Cape and south to the Nile, and including in their itinerary St. Petersburgh and Moscow.  Miss Ninde’s narrative is written in a fresh and sprightly but unsensational style, which, with the unusual experiences portrayed, renders the work quite unlike the ordinary books of travel.