is thus aware of any sudden turn in conversation, and prepared for what it may lead to; but, above all, she can penetrate into the state of mind of those with whom she is placed in contact, so as to detect the gathering gloom upon another's brow, before the mental storm shall have reached any formidable height; to know when the tone of voice has altered, when an unwelcome thought has presented itself, and when the pulse of feeling is beating higher or lower in consequence of some apparently trifling circumstance which has just transpired.
In these and innumerable instances of a similar nature, the woman of tact, not only perceives the variations which are constantly taking place in the atmosphere of social life, but she adapts herself to them with a facility which the law of love enables her to carry out, so as to spare her friends the pain and annoyance which so frequently arise out of the mere mismanagement of familiar and apparently unimportant affairs. And how often do these seeming trifles—
"The lightly uttered, careless word"—
the wrong construction put upon a right meaning—the accidental betrayal of what there would have been no duplicity in concealing—how often do these wound us more than direct unkindness. Even the young feel this sometimes too sensitively for their own peace. But while the tears they weep in private, attest the severity of their sorrow, let them not, like the misanthrope, turn back with hatred or contempt upon the world which they suppose to have injured them; but let them rather learn this wholesome lesson, by their own experience, so to meet the peculiarities of those with whom they associate, as to soften down the asperities of temper, to heal the wounds of morbid feeling, and to make
