PERSEVERE AND PROSPER. “No, but you must give yourself a great deal more trouble than that, before you can be really truthful. You must always intend and try to tell what is exactly true, no more and no less. You will not find it very easy, at first. It is a mistake to say that it is very easy to be quite true in all you say and do. It is difficult to most people ; there are so many temptations to make us wish to seem better or wiser than we are, and to alter the true account of a thing; but it is very difficult indeed for a girl like you, Fanny, who are quick, and careless, and fond of imagining and inventing, to keep herself steadily to the ewact truth. It seems dry and tiresome; but, indeed, my child, truth in all things is the most beauti- ful quality of the mind; one without which all the cleverness and good-nature in the world are worth little in my eyes. I would rather see you honest and truthful, than possessed of all the fine accomplishments that a woman can acquire. But I see no reason why you should not be strictly truth- 48