Page:Side talks with girls (1895).djvu/237

Rh and how different it is with your dear old clergyman at home. Of course it is. A stranger comes to him about once in six months, but to the city clergyman they come every day. He has done his best in trying to see you and in sending his wife to call upon you. You have not returned her call, nor after prayer-meeting have you introduced yourself to her. I begged you to do it, for how else could she possibly know you? One Sunday there was a demand for some helpers at a concert to be given to amuse the boys in a down-town mission. You, who sing, or who play, or who read, or who would even be of some use in taking the tickets, do not volunteer, and yet there was your opportunity to meet pleasant people and to gain some pleasant acquaintances.

You do not speak to the girl who sits next to you in the Bible class because she is dressed fashionably, and you fancy that she is disagreeable and arrogant. Now it may happen that she is just as shy as you are, and that she is only waiting to have a question asked to induce her to say something, but you set your teeth and look disagreeable. My dear girl, fine clothes do not always cover a hard heart, nor shabby clothes a tender one. When you speak as scornfully as you do about "fine clothes and hard hearts" I am surprised at your narrowness alike of heart and brain. I have known people with the meanest