Page:Side talks with girls (1895).djvu/131

 

YOUR OWN FAMILIAR FRIEND

HERE is nothing so beautiful as a faithful friendship between two women. Nothing is quite so unselfish and nothing in life lasts quite so long. This friendship, however, must have the trial-test of years; it does not grow up in a day, or a night, but it is cemented and made perfect by the gradual learning of each to understand the other, by the willingness to help bear each other's burdens, and by that greatest of all virtues in friendship, the never asking a question, but the waiting until the confidence is given. Young girls very seldom form such friendships. They are, as I have said, the outgrowth of years of confidence, and you, who are sixteen, seventeen, or eighteen, have not had the time to try, or be tried, to prove your worthiness as a friend. You look at me with a bit of indignation, and you tell me of "the dearest girl that ever lived," who sympathizes with you in everything, to whom you tell all your