They think her a
little free and easy, or too particular and strait-laced. She is poor,
and mamma is afraid of "the boys" falling in love with her; or rich, and
may stay "only one week," the seeming significance of which sets the
family back up, and she is not asked again.
There are a hundred trifles which part school friends, whose affection
has been of short, rapid growth, and which must therefore wither in a
new atmosphere, unless its roots have struck deep down into the hearts
of both.
So the letters become shorter and fewer, till there comes so long a
pause that neither can remember who wrote last, and each, of course,
feels that the other is to blame for the silence.
"If Kate really cares about me she will answer my last letter," says
Lucy.
"If Lucy wants to drop the correspondence, I'm sure I shan't force her
to keep it up," says Kate.
So the letter is never written, and the friends part; and though I am a
great admirer of the virtue of constancy, I still hold that there are
cases in which it is a mere mockery, the empty husk which we had much
better fling away when the kernel is gone.
But girls' friendships are often made by propinquity, neighbourhood,
adjacent homes, and constant meetings in the ordinary round of life.
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