I have spoken of the influence that a frivolous, vain, selfish companion will be sure to exercise over those with whom she is intimately associated.  For you, as for any young girl, I would seek to prevent such associations.  On the other hand, I should rejoice to see you form friendships with good, high-minded, intelligent, gentle-mannered girls of your own age, and should hope that you would mutually emulate and stimulate each other in all worthy aims and ambitions.  Such friendships, however, are seldom hastily formed.  The gushing and violent attachments that sometimes spring up between young girls are sure to be of mushroom growth and duration, unless there is genuine character and merit in both.  During the period of the continuance of such friendships, a great deal of “selfishness for two” is often developed and manifested.  Very often when young people are visiting together their attentions to each other seem to make them forget their duties and the attentions due to other people.  Here is one of the best tests of the true character of a young girl:  her conduct in the house where she is a visitor.  If she is truly well-mannered and kind-hearted she will certainly be on her guard to conform to the hours and habits of the household where she is a guest; she will avoid making any demands upon the time of her friend that would cause that friend to neglect her daily duties or put to inconvenience the other members of the family.  She will divide her attentions with all the members of the family, having special regard for the very young or the very old.  She will, above all things, be prompt and punctual at meal-time.  Her own tact and judgment will enable her to judge how much assistance she should offer, if any, to the friends she visits—­a matter which must always be determined by circumstances.  In some families and under some circumstances it might be a breach of decorum and an act of officiousness on the part of a visitor to make any offer of assistance in the matter of the daily household arrangements.  In other families and under other circumstances it might be an act of the kindest and best politeness to undertake every day during her visit a portion of the daily home-duties.  That which a young girl who is a visitor in any family should first of all observe, is the wishes and convenience of the older people of the household.  If the friend she is visiting should show too much disposition to make everything about the house bend to the occasion of the visit, the visitor should deprecate this, both by word and example.  Every mother of young daughters knows the difference between visitors who are thoughtful and deferential and helpful, and those whose overweening interest in self and selfish plans makes them oblivious to the convenience and wishes and preferences of their hostess and other members of the family.

If one wished thoroughly to understand the character of any young girl, no better test could be applied than to invite her to a three weeks’ family visit.  By daily observation one could then learn how near in character and disposition, in habits and manners, she approached that beautiful ideal of the poet Lowell which I wish every young girl might constantly strive to imitate and attain to: