"WHAT we need," said a gentleman in private conversation, "is concentration of energy, and application of it in the right direction." The person who spoke is a manufacturer of art furniture, and it was by mere accident that he took as an illustration the example of his fore-woman in the embroidery room. "She is a stout German-American girl, with a heavy face and a dumpy figure. She always attends to business. I have known her ever since she was a young girl doing embroidery for an up-town firm. We used to send her extra pieces to do, and she finally came to us altogether, because we paid her better. She has been in demand, personally sought after by employers ever since she began, for she spends her whole strength in her work. Her dress is extremely plain, and she does not care for gayeties. She has no ruinous diversion of interest to prevent her from attending to the matters of first importance." "On the other hand," he continued, "we have, off and on, in our embroidery room, a pretty girl who will never amount to any thing. Her ideas of life are misshapen. She is a clever enough embroideress, but she works half-heartedly, and only when she feels inclined. She won't undertake this piece, and she can't do that. She is always asking favors and doing little irregularities that are harmless enough but disturbing to business. Her one ambition is dress. She really is in her way, a lady-like person. She is neat and clothes herself in good taste, with no display, but in a style far above her condition in life. Not a lady does she see in the streets but she looks at her dress and her manners, and even listens to her speech, to see what she can pick up to improve herself. The result is, the poor girl has cultivated sensibilities which make it unlikely that she will ever be connected with any home that might be offered her, and she has no strong-minded aspirations to independent prosperity. By devoting her energy to unproductive channels the girl has made herself useless and unhappy. She is not thinking of how her work appears, but of how she herself appears, and tries to gain admiration and ingratiate herself personally, when what we want from her is not pretty manners, but a good piece of embroidery."—Boston Courier.