Page:Side talks with girls (1895).djvu/235

Rh wonder what pleasure I find in books, would like to know about the pretty girl who sits opposite to you, and if the young man next her is really in love with her, and whether the young matron at the end of the table makes all her pretty gowns, or if she doesn't how she occupies her time. You, who represent the general woman, want to know your kind, and be of them. You are perfectly right in saying that I, in my love for solitude and books, am different. You become acquainted with the pretty girl; she introduces to you two or three of the young men; you meet the young matron, and at night you are all down in the parlor laughing and having as merry a time as possible. Then, after a while, there comes "the little rift within the lute;" the gossip of the house—there always is one—whispers to you that the matron laughs at your countrified dresses; that the young girl is jealous of you, and that they think there must be something queer about me because I prefer to keep to myself. The gossip in a boarding-house is always dramatic, and she credits people who merely want to be left alone with having some frightful past. You come up to me and cry as if your heart would break, and all I can say to you is, "My dear, it isn't worth it; take the pleasure out of it all as you do the cream from the milk and let the rest go. Sometimes in a boarding-house an acquaintance becomes a friend, but