Year: 1871

There is a good deal of the life of boys
and girls which passes when they are with
other boys and girls, and involves some
difficulties, with q great many pleasures
all its own.


1t is generally taken for granted that if
the young people are by themselves all
will go we'll. And if you boys and girls
did but know it, many very complimenta.
ry things are said about you in this very
matter. "Children do understand eacn
other so we'll" "Children get along so
well with each other" II feel quite re.
lieved when the children find compau-
ions" This sort Of thing is said behind
the children's back, at the very moment
when the same children, quite rangers to
each other, are wishing that they were at
home tn. mselves, or, a. least, that these
sudden new companions Were.


There is well studied picture Of this
mixed up life OF boys and girls with other
boys and girls who are quite strangers to
them, in the end of Miss Edgeworth's
"Sequel to Frank" book which cannot
get the young people to read as much as
wish they would.


OF course, in the first place, you are to
do as you would be done by. But when
you have said this, question is still in
volved. For minute you do not know
how you would be done by; or, if you
do know, you know simply that
you would like to be let off from the
company of these new-found friends.


elf did rs would be done BY" said
Clara, II should turn round and walk to
the other end of the piazza, and I should
leave the whole party of these strange
girls alone. was having good time
without them, and dare say they would
have better time without me. But papa
brought me to them, and said that their
father was in college with him, and that
other. So could not do in that case ex-
pleasing papa-and that would not be do
lug to him at all as would be done by"


The English of all that is, my dear
the piazza, at Newbury, you had a nice
book, and you would have been glad to
have been left alone nay, at the bottom
of your heart would be glad to be left
alone good deal Of your life. But you
do not wish to be left alone all your life.
And if your father had taken you to Old
Point Comfort for a month, instead Of
New bury, and you were as much strang-
er there as this shy Lucy Pe1cival is to
our Northern ways at Newbury, you would
be very much obliged to any nice Vir.
ginian girl who swallowed down her dis
like of Yankees in general, and come and
welcomed you as prettily as you did the
Percivals when your father brought you
to them. The doing as you would be done
by requires study Of all the conditions
not Of the mere outside accident of the
moment.


The direction familiarly given is, that
we should meet strangers half way. But
I do not find that this wholly answers
These strangers may be represented by
globules of quic ,silver, or, indeed, of
water. on marble table.


Suppose you pour out two little glo-
bules of quicksilver at each of two points,
. like these two. Suppose you make
the globules just so large that they meet
hall way, thus, 90. At these points
where they touch they only touch. 1t
even seems as if they were q little
repulsive, so that they they shrink away
from each other.


BuJ if you will enlarge one of the drops
never so little, that 1t shall meet the other
q very little beyond half way, why the
two will gladly run together into one, and
will even forget that they ever had been
parted.


That is the rule for meeting strangers.
Meet them little bit more than half way.
You will find in life that the people who
do this are the cheerful people and happy,
who get the most Out of society, and, IN
deed, are everywhere praised and loved.


"But am sure l do net know what to
say to them," says Robert, who, with
good deal Of difficulty, has been made to
real this paper thus far.


My dear Bob, have said that you must
talk to thems | know YOU pretended You
could not talk to people, Though yester-
the hammock, I certainly heard good
deal of rattle from somebody who was fix
ing his boat with Glen Waters in the
wood house. But l have never supposed
that you were to sit in agreeable converse
ton about the weather, or the opera, with
these strange boys and girls. Nobody but
prigs would do that, and am glad to say
you are not prig. But if you were turned
in. on two or thr,e boys, as Clara was on
the Pcrclval girls, a good thing to Say


Would you like to 20 in swimming?"
or, "How would you like TO see US clean
our tishi" or, II am going up to set
snares Tor rabbits; how would you like to
go:'


Give them piece of yourself. That is
what mean by meeting them more than
half way. Frankly, honorably, without
reserve-which is 10 say, like a gentle
man; share with these strangers some
part of your own life which makes you
happy.


Clara, there, will do the same thing,
She will take these girls to ride, or she
will teach them how to play "copack," or
she will tell them about her play of the
Sleeping B .auty, and enlist some of them
to take parts This is what I mean BY