scandal will be offensive to her, and she will soon find that there are infinitely more interesting topics for discussion than the faults and follies of our neighbours.

Do not imagine that whilst thus avoiding injuring our neighbours we are doing no good to ourselves. If there is one cast of mind more certain to insure happiness than any other it is that which “thinks no evil,” which habitually sees and seeks for the good points of others, and is more bent on seeking their happiness than its own. The bee sucks the honey, and rejects the poison presented to it; and it is our wisdom and happiness too to discover all the good we can in those about us, and to reject the evil, while, in contributing as much as we can to the welfare of our family, friends, and country, we acquire, by the very effort to do them good, a deeper interest in their welfare, and a warmer affection for them. So true it is that some of the strongest attachments the world exhibits have arisen from having conferred on another numerous and important benefits. We love those we have aided, more perhaps than they love us,--and such is the constitution of human nature that we may confer kindnesses merely at first from a feeling of benevolence, we may defend the character of an absent person from the abstract sense of justice, but the very act itself will give us warm and kindly feelings to the person we have benefited, until our hearts are interested in their fate, and we continue from affection what we began from duty,

It is one great step gained, then, towards present and future happiness, to consider, in every transaction of life, whether we are acting in the spirit of entire honesty. Are we paying a just price to those we employ? Are we giving in charity whilst we are neglecting the requirements of justice ? Are we, by our neglect of little accounts, embarrassing some honest tradesman, whose life depends on our punctuality? Are we, above all, allowing in ourselves a slighting, detracting mode of speaking of others? If so, there is a deficiency of moral honesty in our character which can only be supplied by the closest watchfulness of our every thought, word, and action, aided by earnest prayer to Him who, having commanded us to “ do justice,” will not leave us unassisted in our endeavours to perform His will.

192

CHAP. XI.

FAMILY AND FRIENDS.

Friendship’s the wine of life.
Oh for the bright complexion, cordial warmth,

And elevating spirit of a friend.”—YOUNG.
« Avec lumière et choix cette union veut naître
Avant de nous lier il faut mieux nous connaître."

MOLIÈRE.

a

PERHAPS not even the acceptance of a lover is a more important era in the life of a young girl than her first serious choice of a friend, since no two human beings can be closely associated together without being influenced by each other, either for good or for evil.

Of course I do not speak of those school attachments, lightly entered into and as lightly abandoned, the mere result of circumstances and propinquity, but of that serious selection of a counsellor, confidante, and better self, which every young girl wishes to find in her bosom companion.

Very few indeed are so isolated as to have no such dear companion, and very few natures exist which could dispense with one; for we all need something or some one whom we may love on terms of equality, and to whose affection we may look for such tenderness as we fancy we shall not find in older and sterner beings. Nature would appear to point out sisters whose age approximates to our own as the beings specially calculated to be our friends, and certainly instances are not wanting of the strongest and tenderest union existing between two sisters. And in whom can a young girl expect to find so much indulgence for her failings, so much affection and partial regard for her person and mind, such complete union of interests, as in a sister just so much older than herself that she way act as a guide and mentor, but not so old that she cannot enter into the joyous feelings of youth. Child of the same parents, united by early association, by oneness of interest, by every tie of blood and sentiment of nature, a sister seems given especially to be a friend to a sister. Some, however, are not blessed with such a re