FACES.
OUR faces are pictures of our minds. Whatever we think about makes an impression on our face.
If something gives us pleasure, others may know of our feelings by the expression of our face.
Pleasant thoughts and feelings are shown in every feature. Even the youngest of you can tell pretty well whether those around you are feeling good-natured and pleasant, or whether something does not please them, and they feel fretful. Sometimes, however, we see those whose expression does not betray their feelings; they always look just so, whether they are merry, sad, or indifferent. Now this variety of looks or expressions, as we have called them, may all be produced by the same face.
If you were asked how you laughed, or changed your expression, you might think you simply did, and that was all. It may seem easy to do this, yet it is really wonderful.
Not every thing, which at first thought seems simple and easy to do, is simple and easy to perform. Every movement, as running or walking, seems easy, yet when we stop and think, it is most wonderful, for no man, can, make a machine to operate as wonderfully as our bodies are made to act.
Why cannot dolls or other images be made to change their looks? It is because they are made by man. None but God can make such beings as we.
Our frames are bone; and to beautify and enable us to move in different direction, muscles are attached to the bones. To the form and general use of these muscles do we owe our looks.
These muscles are composed of very fine strings, or fibers, so fine that some are only one four hundredth of an inch in diameter: that is, it would require four hundred laid side by side to make an inch in width. The more delicately anything is made, the more easily it is affected, and if these tiny strings are often used to form unpleasant faces, it will not be long before the general expression will be one of discontent and fretfulness. Take, for example, a pretty-faced rubber doll, and pull her face one way and another, and see the different faces she will show you. When you cease puffing, the rubber contracts, and dolly will present the same smiling face; yet she cannot long endure this treatment; for if it is continued, her face will soon present a net-work of unsightly cracks and wrinkles. Our faces suffer similar effects from continued unpleasant feelings; so if you would have pleasant, pretty faces, which every boy and girl would wish to have, you must entertain pleasant thoughts and feelings.
—Young Pilgrim.
ABOUT BEING OBLIGING.
A PERSON may be selfish and unselfish at the same time. Ethel is very fond of making presents. If Edith admires a book or pencil of hers,' it is at her service. She delights to surprise her schoolmates with little gifts, and often Mattie finds a bunch of violets on her desk, or an orange is added to Sadie's luncheon. Ethel is full of kind thoughts, and is as generous as possible with things that cost her nothing. Still I do not regard her as unselfish.
She is not the least bit obliging. If she is seated in her little rocker by the window, and mamma or auntie come in ever so tired, it does not occur to Ethel to offer her chair, that either of the ladies may rest. Indeed, if you hint it to her, she shakes her head, and says,—
"There are plenty of chairs in the room; why should I give up mine?"
Not long since, Cousin Polly and little Agnes Lee arrived unexpectedly, and as there were other
guests, mamma was compelled to ask Ethel to give up her room, and sleep for the night with her
younger sister. Ethel was so vexed that she pouted and sulked in Cousin Polly's face, would take no notice of the child, and finally cried herself to sleep.
No one ever dreams of asking Ethel to run on an errand, to mend a ripped, glove, or to do the
slightest thing which will put her out of her usual way. They know that she is not obliging, and the
very schoolmates who accept her flowers and oranges, are much more fond of Mary Ann, a plain
little body, who never has anything to give away, but who is always greeting everybody with kind
looks and words.
—Harper's Young People.
Two horsemen met near the statue of a knight with a shield. One side of the shield was of gold, the other of silver. One said the shield was gold; the other that it was silver. They got angry about it, and fought till both were badly hurt. An old priest came along and told them they should have
looked on both sides of the shield. We should always look on both sides of the question..