That might have been mine own, my dear,
Through many and many a happy year,
That might have sat beside me here.

Ay, changeless through the changing scene,
The ghostly whisper rings between
The dark refrain of "might have been."

The race is o'er I might have run,
The deeds are past I might have done,
And sere the wreath I might have won.

Sunk is the last faint flickering blaze;
The vision of departed days
Is vanished even as I gaze.

The pictures with their ruddy light
Are changed to dust and ashes white,
And I am left alone with night.

MY GIRLS.

AN article which has recently appeared in this
periodical under the title, "My Boys," has
induced the writer—a single lady, somewhat
advanced in years—to venture on a few remarks
under the heading My Girls, in which it will
be shown what are the principal faults and
tendencies of the young ladies of this age, and
in which one or two suggestions will be thrown
out, as to the best means of dealing with them.

My Girls—I will speak in the first person,
if I may, as I shall then be less likely to make
mistakes—my girls are not exactly my girls;
that is to say, I stand towards them only in the
relation of an old maiden aunt, with whom they
spend their holidays. They have done so, ever
since the death of their parents, which occurred
when they were quite in their infancy. My
girls are four in number; the youngest is eleven
years old, and the eldest eighteen; the other
two are somewhere between these ages. The
education of my three youngest darlings is still
in progress, that of my eldest is supposed to be
complete. Now—to burst into the subject at
once—to what has that education tended?
What are they educated for? With a view to
whose gratification have they been taught as
they have been taught? With a view to whose
torment have they been left untaught as they
have been? What object do my girls set before
them; what object has been set before them by
those who have had the charge of their
education?

In this world of uncertainty it is a great thing
to be quite sure of anything, and there is one
thing that is unmistakably certain, which is,
that my girls will either marry or remain single
Now the qualities required of a single woman
and a married woman are much more identical
than is generally supposed. There are few women
who are unmarried who are not required, sooner
or later to work. If poor, they will have to
work for their bread; if well off, they will
generally—supposing they follow the path of
duty—have to keep home for some brother, to
look after some relative's children who have a
claim on their regard, or else to bestow their
attention on the wants of those only bound to
them by the ties of a common humanity. The
single woman, who has none of these things to
do, is a very exceptional person.

The house duties of a married woman are too
well known, and have been too often dilated
upon to need, or even to bear, enforcing here,
There is, however, no virtue—if one may use a
positive term for a negative quality—which she
will need more constantly and more imperatively
than unselfishness. Now, thank Heaven,
women are naturally unselfish. Selfishness is a
male vice, par excellence, and is in some remote
degree with men excusable. They have to hew
their way to every achievement by mowing down
so many obstacles, that they are obliged to think
of themselves, or they would never get on.
Women have, or should have, no identity
wholly their own, no separate existence in
themselves—this is treating of women in their natural
state of alliance with men. If a woman (speaking
generally) so allied, has any thought at all,
except for her husband and children, she is
nothing.

This is a strong assertion, but I cannot
swerve from it. I cannot advance a single step
without it. I cannot say how sure I am that
it is so, and that the acceptation of the truth is
at the root of all real happiness for women.

Now, the whole tendency of a girl's education,
as at present conducted, is to eradicate this
natural self-abandonment, and to cultivate that
quality of selfishness which, barely, and only in
the slightest degree, excusable in men, is, in
women, not only a hideous, but an inconceivably
dangerous disfigurement.

I observe in my girls a gradually developing
audacity and independence which augurs ill
for their future. Their looks and carriage are
defiant and wholly wanting in humility. They
march along with their military heels, their
shortened petticoats abruptly terminating like
the edge of a diving-bell, and the whole ridiculous
mass swaying from side to side as each foot is
placed on the ground; they march along as if
they were the most important part of creation,
and as if the men whom they meet, with the
stoop of labour and a weight of care upon their
shoulders, were barely good enough to wait upon
them. The men do not like this, I suspect.
There is no man who, as long as a woman fights
with her own arms, and uses the mighty strength
of her own most beautiful weakness, but
will gladly give way, and yield, if need be, a
menial service to women; but it must be accepted
as a concession; not demanded as a right.

Men will pay every kind of attention to women,
and bestow all sorts of worship and tenderness
upon them; but we women should admit that it
is not our right, and then that right will never
be questioned.

It is not my intention, any more than it was
that of the gentleman who recently made some
complaints about his boys, to say much about
the school education of my girls, or to depreciate
the course of instruction through which
they are put, while under the care of the excellent
Mrs. Primways. I am not. going to
indulge in common-place diatribes against the too