As a general rule, we value the most that for which we pay the most. But at this season of the year we have sunshine and fresh air in prodigal plenitude freely given us. Do we really appreciate these free gifts surrounding us? We can have them in immeasurable quantity if we will. Let us see if we understand their value to us. Suppose we go into the garden, or into a field, and gather a handful of flowers, with a little grass and a few leafy twigs to add to their beauty. Now divide this lot into two, and put them into jars containing water. One is to be kept outside—say under a tree, where at times the sunshine will break through, and where the air is pure; and the other is to go into the sitting-room of our house. Leave them a few days, giving them each fresh water daily, and notice what happens to them. We shall find that cut flowers, placed out of doors in the fresh air, and having also a measure of grateful and comforting sunshine, not too hot and burning, will live three times as long as those placed in an average living-room of a house, where fresh air and sunshine do not so penetrate. True, human beings are not flowers, but they do require favorable circumstances of atmosphere and influences of sunshine to enable them to breathe their best, and to produce satisfactory specimens, all the same. Humanity toils and spins, and, therefore, needs all the kindly influences that nature so lavishly bestows. Daily labor in stuffy, sunless atmospheres and dull apartments will cause to droop and wither all the flowers of manhood and womanhood, making limp and lifeless what ought to be as fresh and sweet as a wild rose. These are the days of micro-organisms. We have learned much of the habits of deadly microbes, and have discovered various means of putting them to death. We have our poisonous solutions—our antiseptics, as we call them—to spray them with, and thus put an end to them. And we are daily discovering more and more in this direction. But let us not forget the sun. This is the greatest and most powerful antiseptic agent of all. The sun gives life and color to the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and it no less helps us by destroying the legions of organisms that would otherwise create disease when opportunity permits. The sun is the finest antiseptic known to man. And how pleasant! If sunshine were scarce, what money the rich would pay for it! But, thank heaven! it is as free as it is abundant and delightful. We have only to put our head out of the door or window, and revel in it. We must not forget, either, that where the sun is, there will be, as a rule, fresh air also. The house should not be closely shut up in summer-time just because the dust will blow in, or because the sun may fade the furnishings. Well, so too will the occupants of the house fade if their rooms are kept unaired and unsunned. The color upon a daughter's cheeks should certainly be as important as the shade of a carpet; and a little dust blown through the window now and then would not be as poisonous as the stagnant air of a darkened room. Draw up the blinds, then, and throw open the window, that the fresh air of heaven and the pure sunshine may come in, with all their health and life-giving power. One hour of such a vivifying draught will be of more healthful value than would the swallowing of the entire pharmacopoeia.