Girls’ confidences.
“Come, now, can’t you jest tramp over to Pennel’s and tell Sallie I want her?”
“Not I, mother. There ain’t but two gals in two miles square here, an’ I ain’t a-goin’ to be the feller to shoo ’em apart. What’s the use o’ bein’ gals, an’ young, an’ pretty, if they can’t get together an’ talk about their new gowns an’ the fellers? That ar’s what gals is for.”
Maternal element in woman’s love.
Her love for Moses had always had in it a large admixture of that maternal and care-taking element, which, in some shape or other, qualifies the affection of woman to man.
LITTLE FOXES.
Tact.
Some women are endowed with a tact for understanding human nature and guiding it. They give a sense of largeness and freedom; they find a place for every one, see at once what every one is good for, and are inspired by nature with the happy wisdom of not wishing or asking of any human being more than that human being was made to give. They have the portion in due season for all: a bone for the dog; catnip for the cat; cuttle-fish and hemp-seed for the bird; a book or review for their bashful literary visitor; lively gossip for thoughtless Miss Seventeen; knitting for grandmamma; fishing-rods, boats, and gunpowder for Young Restless, whose beard is just beginning to grow;—and they never fall into pets, because the canary-bird won’t relish the dog’s bone, or the dog eat canary-seed, or young Miss Seventeen read old Mr. Sixty’s review, or young Master Restless take delight in knitting-work, or old grandmamma feel complacency in guns and gunpowder.
Again, there are others who lay the foundations of family life so narrow, straight, and strict, that there is room in them only for themselves and people exactly like themselves; and hence comes much misery.