"MISS A. B. L." can safely have her white and muslin dresses for the ensuing season made with infants' waists. If her figure is small and light, they cannot fail to be becoming; and, for quite young ladies, the style never is out of date.
"MRS. P. L.," of Darien, Geo., can have her books by package or mail. We add to our list for reading aloud, "An Attic Philosopher in Paris: being the Journal of a Happy Man," published by the Appletons. Its tone is most genial and pure, entirely free from the French sentimentality that borders on frivolity, and, at the same time, full of pathetic truths. For the children, we would particularly commend "Our Little Comfort" and "Love's Lessons," both of which are admirable.
"MRS. H."--An infant's skirt should not be over a yard in length. Of course, the petticoats should be a hem shorter, the flannel shortest of all.
"ELLEN" had better send an order for patterns, now that they are so cheap--much cheaper than _words_.
Of the work that "MRS. R." has asked our opinion as a book for the family, we must be allowed to say that we do not consider its morality to be pure, nor the sympathies it arouses womanly. Dwelling on such scenes cannot do the general good that some critics seem to expect from it. We agree with them that "ignorance is not virtue;" at the same time, there is much to be dreaded in _familiarizing_ the innocent mind with the details of sin and wickedness. "To the pure, all things are pure," again urges the specious moralist; but, alas for our nature that it should be so! the seeds of impurity are to be found in every earth-born mind, only too ready to be developed. Poison the mind, the imagination, and you open the flood-gates of innumerable temptations. Only too true is the lesson of a sterner moralist--
"Vice is a monster of such frightful mien, As, to be hated, needs but to be seen; But seen too oft, familiar with its face, We first endure, _then pity_--then embrace."
We may seem to speak warmly on the subject, and thus overstep our limits; but books that wrong, under a pretence of virtue, are worst of all to be dreaded. Our sex are more exposed to their influence than to any open temptation. Books are to us companions. They lie under our pillows, and on the empty seat beside us; they hide in our work-baskets, or under the sofa cushion, to come forth at a moment's notice; while, with men, they have but the passing notice of an idle hour.