A GIRL'S SAFEST CONFIDANT.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 9944, 25 January 1898, Page 6

A GIRL'S SAFEST CONFIDANT.

It may be yon feel the need of sympathy ; that your work has all gone wrong, or that Jack didn't write when you thought he would, or that the folks at home don t seem to appreciate your heroic struggle to get along in the world ; and you haven't many old friends, and those you have seem more interested in their own trials and tribulations than in yours. You want a confidante, and so, if your are foolish, you pick out some girl, who aeems sympathetic and ready to listen to your tale of woe, and you tell her everything—other people's secrets as well as your own, three times more than you ever intended telling or had auy right to tell—and spenb the rest -of the year regretting it. Or, if you are still more foolish, you will pour all your troubles into tbe sympathising ear of some young man— just because you must tell someone, aad be baa been friendly once or twice. He will be even more friendly now, and pat your head aad call you * Poor child !" —and ever after despise you lor your weakness, even aa much as you despise yourself. But if you are wise, and feel that yon most hare a confidante—and we all get to tbat stage in oar lives sometimes—aad your mother.—for, after all, she is the best—ia not near enough to be available, you will go np to your mirror and sit down in front of it, and make a confidante of tbat. The chances are tbat the girl in the looking-glass will be as much interested in your story as anyone else whom you could choose, and she is always sympathetic. She may not say just the words that your soul is longing for, but her eyes fill with tears at sight of yours, and when you stretch out your hands in impotent longing because of that loneliness of spirit that comes to us all now and then, the mirror-girl stretches out her hands to you—and there is comradeship. Aud when yon have finished your conndances to tbe girl in the looking-glass, that is the end of it. If she thinks of them afterwards, she gives no sign. You needn't dread to meet her eyea in tbe morning because of the things that you have said tne night before. \ou don't have to worry yourself sick wondering whether she is discreet enough to keep the secret you could not keep for yourself. When your mood has changed, and your face is wreathed in smiles, she doesn't shake her bead and look upon you pityingly, and say, " Poor dear ! She has confided in mc, and I know this levity is but assumed !" She doesn't take pains to ask you every day—

as if, knowing so much of the story, she has a right to know it all — whether your brother still continues in his evil courses, and feel angered when you return her an evasive reply. She doesn't come up and put her hand upon your shoulder and whisper that it makes her feel so sorry to see Jack paying such attention to that Miss Pardoe, because she knows just how it troubles you. She keeps all such thoughts to herself, the mirror-girl; and when you come for sympathy again she will be ready to give it to yott, with no of bhe time when you " made just such a fuss before." Some things she will tell you, however, if you but understand her language. She will preach long sermons upon the beauty of cheerfulness, the grandeur of self-denial, the charm of humility. She will point out the tiny wrinkles between the brows that fretting brings, and the lines about the mouth that mark the peevish spirit. And when, sometimes, the wonder comes as to the need of all this earthly pain, the mirror, if it is a wise one, will remind you that only by the lessons learned from suffering have the great deeds of the world been wrought.— The Princess. '