Page:Side talks with girls (1895).djvu/100

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Side Talks with Girls

manner, consists in finding nothing to your liking. Of course, you display this fault at the home table most prominently, but when you are visiting you make your hostess feel uncomfortable, although you don't say a word, by refusing everything on the table except bread and butter and tea. Now, my dear, unless you learn to avoid this sin of manner, you should eat by yourself at home and not be permitted to go visiting.

SINS OF DISRESPECT

You think that respect is only necessary to your father and mother, and yet it is absolutely due to whoever is older than you, whoever is greater, and whoever is better. Flippant speeches and carelessness of manner simply stamp you as being very ignorant. Fancy making an old lady a subject of jest as I heard a girl doing not long ago! It happened to be true that she was odd, that she dressed much too young for her years, and that she seemed to forget that she was no longer a young woman; still, no matter what she did, that did not excuse the light criticisms that were passed upon her. And you and I, my friend, are just as likely to be foolish when we are old. There were many good things in this old lady's life; to many a young girl had she given a pretty party dress, and nothing pleased her so much as to collect