Page:Side talks with girls (1895).djvu/189

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The Mother of My Girl
177

Then, when she came in late to dinner, and there was company at the table, you said to her before everybody, "No matter how much you were interested in that book you will have to be on time at this table, or go without your dinner." There was a lamp in her throat, and her heart swelled as if it would burst. She couldn't eat anything and them you called her sulky. Now she ought not to have been late, but then you ought not to have reproved her before others. The reprimand should have taken a different form and been given when you and she were alone. Her love for you should have been appealed to, and she ought to have been told how badly it looked for strangers to see her unpunctual, and how it made her mother appear as if she did not train her properly. This girl will either find an inimate friend who will become her confidante, or else she will live along an unhappy life alone, and at the first opportunity that offers leave her home. And you will wonder at her ingratitude and think that because you have fed, clothed, and sheltered her, you have done all that was necessary.

THE GREAT RESPONIBILITY

When God gave you that little life He gave it to you that you might train it up in the way it