Hints To Girls
GIVE your best sympathy. There is no greater human power than the tenderness of woman. If you can minister to some one in sickness, lessen somebody's distress, or put a flower in some poor home, you have done a thing you will always be glad to think of. You will be remembered; and a woman asks no grander monument than to live in hearts.
Not far from my home was the plain cottage of an Irish woman and her only son, a brave young fellow, dying of consumption contracted in the war. One day, in my visit to him, I carried him some lovely red roses. The next time I went, the mother said, "He never let the roses go out of his hand, miss. He held 'em when he died, and the last he ever said was, 'Give my blessin' to the young lady for bringin' the flowers.'" And the desolate mother buried them with him, as the most precious thing he possessed. The blessing of that poor Irish youth will always be a pleasant memory. Be gentle. Strength of character and sweetness of disposition are in nowise incompatible. Doubtless, the most winsome nature on earth is that which combines the naturalness and dependence of a child with the strength of a true woman. There are people whose touch is balm to us; restful persons whose companionship is a benediction, who draw out the best of our natures, whose presence we may scarcely note, but whose absence creates a void which the heart hungers to have filled.
The remembrance of a tender word will last long after you are in your grave. A little bootblack boot fell on the icy streets of, Chicago one winter's day. A cheery young lady passing, said, as she helped him up, "Did you hurt yourself'" His whole face beamed as, after her departure, he said to his companions, "I'd like to fall a dozen times if I could have her pick me up like that." A harsh voice in a woman is like a discord in the sweetest music. One can easily get into complaining and dissatisfied tone. Have a sunny face; and nothing will do this save genuineness in the heart. Every girl ought to try to make it possible to say of her, "She brightens every life she touches." If you never do aught else in life, bring sunshine into every heart you meet.—
Sarah K. Bolton
ONLY a word—but the work that it wrought
Could never by tongue or pen be taught;
For it ran through a life like a thread of gold,
And the life bore fruit a hundred-fold.