five, and that if you had depended upon her there would have been no business done at the fancy table at all. Every one knows this girl. Unfortunately she constitutes a great part of every community. In church work, in theatricals, in school entertainments, in all committee workwherever, in fact, there is a body of women or girls collected to do a certain work you will find the same thing-one or two faithful workers who come to every meeting, do their part promptly and intelligently and put the thing through by their own personal effort. To each one of these there will be four or five who are great in expressions of interest and full of excuses when the day comes and they are not found in their place. It is the first type of girl, the faithful girl with the priceless quality of dependability who is responsible for the success of all corporate effort. She it is who leavens the mass by her gift of individual enthusiasm and prompt effort. She does what she promises to do, constituting by that one quality alone an example full of power to her weaker sisters. I am convinced that it is only a matter of will, this keeping of appointments. People allow themselves to form the habit of breaking engagements. Once done it is always easier to do it the next time. There are some families who never keep engagements and who consider every little hindrance a legitimate excuse to back out of whatever it is that they have said they would do. There is another matter in which I wish every girl would be particular about the kind of example she sets, and that is how she speaks about the affairs of other persons. "If your lips would keep from slips Five things observe with care: Of whom you speak, to whom you speak, I am willing to admit that the continual observance of these five rules would produce a pretty dry and uninteresting character, but I think more harm than we can possibly estimate is done by malicious, untrue and suggestive talk about others. Of There is such a difference in the way you speak. course we all discuss one another's business, every one does, we must expect it and allow for it, but it can be done in such different ways. In the spirit of kindly speculative interest it is not a harmful trait, but we all know persons who delight in giving digs to every one as soon as the conversation grows personal. Contempt, scorn, ridicule, this is the tone in which many people always speak of their friends. Always criticizing, never in the spirit of sympathy and understanding. 66 There is no example which affects us more strongly than that of a girl who, while talking freely and naturally of others always brings their good qualities to the front, and tries in a gentle and sweet manner to cover their faults and misdemeanors with the mantle of charity and silence. It is only a matter of habit which tone we allow our conversation to take. It is for us. to decide whether we shall shield the less fortunate and the less perfect by quietly dropping their business from our talk, or whether we shall drag forth on all occasions everything we have heard or imagine might possibly be connected with their affairs. "Words are mighty, words are living, Serpents with their venomous stings True or false that never dies; |