out, they say), didn't wear them any more | ify my tastes, as far as she can, consistent with than my aunt did, but while my aunt's dress higher things. She doesn't expect me to be was always ungraceful, dowdy and limp, my herself over again, but she wishes me always mother's was always neat and becoming. My to make dress subservient to higher things, aunt clung to the bonnet and the old style of but still does not consider it beneath my atdoing the hair; you know how she looked. tention." Mother, too, wore a bonnet and dressed her hair as she always had dressed it, but there was always the lady about my mother, and no style of dress could make her anything else." "I think your mother coincides with your aunt's peculiar opinions on most subjects, but perhaps her duties as wife and mother have made the difference." She shook her head. "Oh, no! there is that natural difference between the two. My aunt would never have been domestic had she been married and had a dozen children. She hasn't a bit of system about her. Everything in her house would have been at sixes and sevens, and while she talked and theorized, her children would have ruled the house." "And people would have said,” said I, "what a poor wife and mother a strongminded woman makes, never heeding how many miserable, weak-minded wives and mothers there are in the world." "That's it, auntie." So we talked on. I think girls as a class are more talkative than boys, and that the power of expression develops earlier in the female than the male sex. And this girl had evidently been with people who talked well, and accordingly, knew how to express herself well. I entirely forgot my anxiety as regards entertaining her, for I found she took the task entirely out of my hands, being myself the entertained instead of the entertainer. After a while she went to the piano. First I heard a fine piece of music, then she sung a ballad, playing an accompaniment. She had a clear, sweet voice, which in time would be powerful, and she sung with expression. After she had played awhile, she took a book and read aloud to me in a very pleasing man ner. "You read well; who taught you to read?" "I don't know. I suppose I learned at school; or, I don't know, but my mother taught me. We read aloud to each other." So there was no lack of employment. I found in one forenoon that my girl could sew and play and read and talk; a very good "But you are not just the girl I should have supposed your antecedents would have made you." "What sort of a girl would you have pre- specimen of a girl. No need of the time dicted?" "Had you been priggish and pedantic, I should not have been surprised, or had you been a good, proper, but rather uninteresting girl, I should not have wondered, or had you been dressed in Bloomer costume and driving "a velocipede, I should have been prepared for it. But I don't see as you are so very different from other girls at first sight, only in this; that you can come to pay a visit of a month and bring only a valise." "O, you forget my mother is a sensible women and is willing I should conform in a sensible manner to custom, when there is no principle involved and no physical harm done. So I appear and dress like other girls, in a degree. My mother has nice tastes; she likes silks and laces and doesn't blame me for liking them, and she is willing to grat hanging heavily on her hands. Evidently she never thought of such a thing. She was the busiest person I ever knew. Even my boy with his "all out of doors" and "lots of fun" couldn't excel her. She had been used to having her moments all employed, and never dreamed of idle ones. If nothing else, there were the piano and books, of which she never tired. And the second day, out came her crayons and cardboard, out of that wonderful valise. Then she was a perfect Mercury for doing errands. "Now don't you think of anything you want done? any letter posted, or a spool of cotton, or a paper of pins, for I must go out this bright morning." And in two minutes, there she was down the street, her hat ribbons flying, and the long ends of her white cloud streaming down on her gray sacque. | my coil this way and that, to give it the right I was glad to see she had a girl's fancies for neck ribbons and gloves and boots. She liked her gloves to fit perfectly to her hand, and boots to fit as neatly as a glove, and rib- | bons to harmonize with her dress and complexion. And yet she wasn't a bit vain. How her little figure brightened up the house. She was a bit of sunshine let into my life. I never tired of her; she was always fresh and original, always sunny and sweet, partly from her natural disposition, and partly her physical and mental training. She was healthy in mind and body. I thought I would give my girl a party. She was pleased to hear of my intention, as any other girl would be. So I sent out and invited in my young friends, my nieces by law and by adoption, and my nephews also. And the party was to be an evening party, and all the day before we were busy with preparation. And my girl proved herself invaluable; it was she who ordered the icecreams, and beat the eggs for the cake to the lightest froth, and strained the jelly and filled the tarts, and decorated the parlors and the chambers, and flitted up and down stairs like a sprite, with her short curls all disarranged, and the sleeves of her morning dress tucked up to her elbows. All day she trotted around, and how she enjoyed herself, or rather, how we enjoyed ourselves. And the afternoon faded away and all was completed, and tea was over, for we had an early tea because we had had no dinner, and we went up stairs to dress. And long before I was ready to go down, my girl came into my room all dressed. "Will I do, auntie?" said she. She had on the dress she had shown me the day she came, and the laces, and the pretty jewelry, and her hair was freshly curled, and a bright color was in her cheek and the sparkle in her eye and she looked the very personification of happy girlhood not young lady hood. "Yes, you will do," said I, turning her around, "though you did come in a black valise. I'm not ashamed to present you to my nieces and nephews." She made me a low curtesy. "Now let me give you the finishing touches." So she made me sit down and pulled appearance, and pinned my collar, and then made me stand up while she straightened the folds of my dress, and then said, “I would do." Then we went down stairs and looked the rooms all over again. "And now," said she, "while we are waiting for the 'party to begin, it makes me think of something I read the other day in Patience Strong about waiting-time,' that it was a time to enjoy. Don't you think it nice, this waiting-time,' to look at all the preparations; the table all set out with goodies, and the gas lighted and everything bright and we looking our best? and hark! there goes the bell, and the party has begun." And sure enough they came in a body; and there was laughing and shouting and kissing and tramping up the stairs, and then re-arranging of curls and dresses and shaking out of handkerchiefs, and all perfumes mingled in one over-powering fragrance, and happy hearts and everything in train for an evening's enjoyment. It wasn't a formal party. My girl was soon introduced to my young friends and she fitted into her place admirably. She played and sang for them when they asked her, and admired their singing and playing in return. And they started games and charades and their enjoyment never flagged, but seemed to reach its climax at the suppertable. And so the party was a success, and I received a vote of thanks from the nieces and nephews, as they stood hooded and cloaked in the hall, before their departure. I was glad to find that my girl had no young lady airs. She was never languid nor out of spirits. She never lounged about on the sofas with a book, or dawdled away her time in standing and sitting about. When she read, she did it as she did everything else, with spirit. When she talked, she talked about something, not an endless tirade about nothing or meaningless gossip. Without being in the least pedantic, or wishing to show off, her conversation showed that she was well read, and her mind well stored for one of her years. She hadn't read many novels, because her time had been so filled with better things she had had no chance, so she had no false senti ment. She had not much self-consciousness, | be done. A merry time we had of it; how no morbid sensitiveness as to what people might think of her, which those possessing it call bashfulness. She had self-possession, selfrespect, self-confidence, and all these havings and not havings were the fruits of her mother's excellent training, which, filling her mind and time with useful things, had left no chance for the vain and useless. From her childhood,mind and body had been employed, not crammed, crowded and worried with an endless round of study without method; but still no time left for her to brood over her own feelings and her own wants. The pleasure of things was found in the doing, not in the reward which was to follow the doing; as the pleasure of the party was as much in the preparation and the waiting, as in the party itself. Her girlhood was not something to be got through with as quickly as possible, that she might be a young lady, it was something of itself, and to be enjoyed for itself. The future might be good, doubtless it was, but she would wait for it, and not lose the present good, in haste to grasp the other before its time. So life was bright to her, as why should it not be, when she had not seen its shadow? And her brightness and spirits were contagious. She had little ways of doing me favors , and kindnesses, as though she were doing them for her own pleasure, and not for my comfort or benefit. She was always by me when I was going out to help me on with my cloak, or straighten out my bonnet strings. And when she went with me she would always insist upon carrying my bag or my parcel. I felt no added responsibility while she was with me. She never left so much as a glove or a book out of place. Not contented with putting away her own things, she was always ready to take my gloves, my bonnet and cloak when I came in. How many times she saved me the ascent of the stairs, how many times I found the article I wanted right to my hand, without expressing the wish for it. Her room was a pattern of neatness; no ribbons about,no pins nor hairpins, everything folded up nicely or hung up. One morning while we were at breakfast, the servant was called away by the death of a cousin. There was the day's housework to we washed dishes and scoured knives and did the chamber work and got up the dinner and eat it and cleared away, was something worth seeing and doing. Then one day I was sick. And wasn't I tended and nursed and pillowed up on the sofa, and tempted with oranges and the nicest of gruel, and my aching head done up in cold water! And better than that, she knew when it was best to let me alone, and she darkened the room and stepped about softly, and sat down quietly where I could speak to her if I wanted anything, and then Is.nk into a refreshing slumber. Yes, rarest of all accomplishments, she knew when to be hushed and quiet. I praised her for it afterwards. "Why you know mother is an invalid and I am always her nurse." She has gone home. I couldn't keep her any longer, for her mother sent for her. I saw her pack that little black valise with a heavy heart, and put on the grey sacque and hat. We went together down to the car. THE DIVINE SIDE. I HAVE a friend in Life. Existence is its own apology. The world's pulse throbs in mine, and through its fever-strife I feel the strength and power that make it joy to be. This sentient soul, with consciousness of God, This inspiration breathing through the clod, Must be a deathless friend, with good in endless store; I have a friend in Toil. Not on itself my life is left to feed. Fate holds me close above the fresh and healthfui soil, When most the hands tire is the heart at rest. And life's most worthy end I count it to attain That some small work shall prove I have not lived in vain. I have a friend in Care. The laden bough is firmest to the wind. The heaviest burdened yoke my shrinking shoulders bear Responsible for duty's first and last; And I can spare some charm and brightness from my lot, While dear, dependent lives shall need, and miss me not. I have a friend in Pain. Tried sentinel at every open gate, Highway or postern, where the subtlest foe might gain Access to field or hall of being's fair estate. The touch of his stern hand but makes me know His crucible of fire my ease and joy may hold, I have a friend in Loss. 'Tis well that blessings are but lent, not given. Life were too fair a thing without its daily cross, And earth would bind too fast, were not its flower-chains riven. My lonely way but makes the goal more dear; My empty hands reach up for heavenly cheer; And all my loss is gain when this blest truth I see I have a friend in Grief. The eyes see clearer that are washed with tears. The sacredness and power and mystery of life And o'er those wailing strings an angel-strain is borne I have a friend in Death. With outstretched hand my slow approach he waits. And smiling as he stands, his far-off whisper saith “Come thou and find thine own, beyond my shadowy gates." More and more oft he turns their solemn key For some new treasure he must hold in fee. And each departing joy to his dread charge I lend, I have a friend in God. He hath not left me lone or comfortless. He leads me through the dark, and o'er a thorny road But in that clasp I feel He still delights to bless. Secure in Him, I fear no deadly harms, For round me are the everlasting arms. Though earth should fail beneath, and heaven lose star and sun, My soul has still its God, all friends and joys in one! |