Page:Side talks with girls (1895).djvu/236

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Side Talks with Girls

it is only occasionally that this happens, so regard these people as you do the pleasure of the moment. Get from your intercourse with them all that you can, innocently, and refuse to see or hear the disagreeable side." After we have had a little experience we learn the absolute unstability of sudden friendships, whether made in the office or in the parlor. We know by heartaches and tears shed, by disappointments and facts, that friendship is a plant of very slow growth, and that it must be as tenderly cared for as the finest orchid.

AT THE CHURCH

You have brought from your clergyman at home a letter of introduction to a clergyman in the city. You present it. He is genial and kind and tells you that he must find you some friends among the congregation. You go regularly to church, to Sunday-school, and to prayer-meeting, but at the end of three months you know as many people as you did when you first came. Your clergyman has been to call on you, but you were out; his wife came to visit you, and the same thing happened. You did not take the trouble to tell him that you were busy all day, and so both he and his wife came at the wrong time. You think very black thoughts about ministers who are paid big salaries and pay no attention to their parishioners,