Page:Side talks with girls (1895).djvu/49

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The Country Girl
37

cause her life in the city has made her feel that she knows all that is worth knowing, and it seems to her that the social laws of her small circle govern the world. Right is right everywhere and at all times, but what would be counted a breach of etiquette in the city may be nothing but a neighborly kindness in the country, and no thought of wrong is given to it until the city girl suggests it. Long ago she was told that it was not correct for her to go driving with a young man alone; her cousin in the country feels very grateful when a neighbor who is going to the nearest town, stops and takes her in his buggy, and gives her time to do her shopping at the country store, and then brings her back home; there is not a thought of anything wrong about this, and Chevalier Bayard could not be more courteous than is her neighbor. I think the city girl very often forgets that the country is not environed by an iron railing with a plot of grass behind it and a back yard. Lilies grow in country gardens, and country girls are very often as ignorant of evil as the lilies themselves.

TO IMPROVE HERSELF

A question that is continually asked by the girl who is far off from the picture galleries, the libraries, and the great centres of civilization is, how she shall improve her mind. She does not wish