[OUR POST-OFFICE BOX.]
"I hate to apologize; I do not like to admit that I was in the wrong."
I do not know who the speaker was. I did not even see his face as he passed the window where I was sitting, resting in the shadow of the curtain, and thinking, dear children, about you. I am sure that he was a boy, however, for such a fresh, decided voice, and such a quick step, could belong to nobody in the world but a boy.
Somehow I felt very sorry indeed when I thought about what he had said: "Hate to apologize! Not like to confess one's self to have been in the wrong!" Why, that is not noble.
Every one of us—you, Elsie, at your pretty embroidery, you, Dora, at your map drawing, you, Horace, over your chemistry, you, Theobald, deep in Virgil, I, the Post mistress, with my heaps of letters—every one of us, my dears, is liable sometimes to be in the wrong. We say something hastily, and hurt somebody's feelings, and then we are sorry. We do something which is foolish, and which we regret. The only brave course—the only course open to honorable people—is to apologize, to ask pardon, if necessary, of the person whom we have vexed or annoyed. It is always manly in a boy to own up and bear the blame if he has made a mistake. Many of the troubles and heart aches that people have to bear would be done away with if everybody who did wrong was willing to admit it, and if those who were wronged would be forgiving.
And now for the good things with which this number of the Post-office Box is fairly overflowing.
San Francisco, California.
I live in San Francisco. I often drive out to the beach with papa and mamma. A little way from the shore there is a large pile of rocks, and upon them you can see hundreds of sea-lions climbing about, and can plainly hear them barking or roaring. I often drive through the Golden Gate Park too. It is beautifully laid out with flowers, and at the large conservatory the beautiful "Victoria Regia" is in bloom now—a lily whose blossoms open three times, the first day a pure white, with a large white crown in the centre, then closes to open the next day a pale pink, then closes to open the last time almost purple. The leaves are saucer-shaped, about one yard across, and will bear the weight of a child three or four years old standing on them. But I must stop now, so good-by. I am nine years old, and study at home.