Page:Side talks with girls (1895).djvu/142



WONDER how many of my girls have the great privilege of being the sister in the family? And when I say sister I mean the oldest daughter. Sometimes she is the baby whom God first gave to the happy household; sometimes she has two or three brothers to greet her when she comes into the world, but as long as she is the first girl, she is always sister, and to her come special rights and privileges. I want to talk to her just a little bit and tell her what these rights are, what the privileges are, and what the pleasures are. She is very near to me because she and I stand side by side, and I know, perhaps better than she does, the mistakes that may be made and the privileges that are within her reach. She is, before everything else, the closest one to the dear mother. A boy may come near to the maternal heart, but he never gets her confidence, and she never quite relies on him as she does on her oldest girl. The