Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1893-04-06
WOMAN AND HOME.
ADVICE OF ELDERS IN CHOOSING THE
FRIENDS OF YOUTH.

some Useful Suggestions For the Home
makers Guidance-Iints For the Par
lor and Ilitchen-Tho Responsibilities
which Rest Upon Mothers.
aft seems as if grandmamma could not
Ind enough fault with my friends, " n Young
rirl was heard complaining to her sister
The other day, and grandmamma not be-
You'd hearing, felt very sore and indignant
bver the unjust remark. Why had she
found fault with the friends of her darling?
because she loved to pick rose to pieces
md throw its petals to the wind, or because
The did not love the young girl and want
her to be happy? Far from it. Her whole
thought i'll the matter was love. Yet, for
all that, perhaps her eye was not altogether
single in the direction in which that love
looked. For, in the first place, she was
moved by a desire that her grandchild
should have about her the best companion
ship, and her anxiety that it should be the
best made her inspect and criticise and find
fault made her difficult to please, for what
was there quite good enough for the occa-
sion, and who was there to be fully trusted
10 do no harm of blight or tarnish to this
opening flower of her hope2
And then, in the last place, it is not i'm
possible that little jealousy of the COM
panion, who has possibly more beauty,
or more talent, or more money, or more
position, more of the worlds advantages
In general, perhaps even a prettier man
her or n better temper, than her own
young girl, made her look askant and speak
bitterly, seeing in her own dear the demerit
that only eyes made keen by jealous love
are quick enough to see, but which only
lhe tongue that champions a rival is sharp
Enough to announce. At any rate in either
Ease it is love, even if love perverted. But
is it not better for those of us who have
reached the dignity of the elders, who are
Frandmothers and aunts, without actual
responsibility and power to forbid, TO re-
member that youth and years behold things
from entirely different points of view?
If we look back over the Intervening
space Of our own lives, we shall remember
how ardently youth took everything in
hand, how we chose our friends, few out of
many, for reasons surely appealing to our
selves. and having chosen them, how we
rlung to them, confded in them, held them
rs a part of us, felt censure of them as cen
sure of us, not only as censure of our choice,
but of all the life of ours, the thoughts, the
feelings the acts that had entered into it.
We did not sympathize with that love for
us which would separate these friends from
rs, and we would have despised the jealous
thought that saw the wrong side of these
young friends who We're the other half Of
our souls as Horace has it, had we been
aware of it.
Would it not be best then, to reserve the
faul, finding from loud expression, to en-
reavor to improve the young companion
under our displeasure, and if that is not
possible, then to break up the undesired
companionship by long visits elsewhere of
our own young girl, by journeyings and
occupations or by bringing forward COM
panons beyond reproach, whom the pro-
pinquity may make as dear as were the I'M
desired ?-Harpers Bazaar.