e--that the sea is, in fact, a
pond--and you cease to care for it.

There is something in this to explain the languidness or cessation of
many girl friendships. There is nothing more to be learned--nothing more
to teach. They have come to an end of their resources; there is no more
help to be got, and the interest dwindles. A long walk or talk with one
another becomes stale, each prefers her own society, and by degrees the
unfed affection cools, and they find themselves unconsciously groping
about for souls whose limitations they have not yet reached.

This is not fickleness; it is Nature; and there is a natural
remedy--progress. If day by day your shores--to use Emerson's
simile--widen, if you will not allow your mind to remain at a
standstill, like the stagnant pond, but are constantly receiving and
constantly using varied stores of knowledge and experience, you need not
fear to crush your friend by the discovery of your limitations. She will
have to progress too, if she is to come up with that; and as there is no
reasonable probability that you will advance in precisely the same
direction, you will each find increasing interest and help in the
other's society.

One thing more the ideal friendship needs, but it is one most girls'
friendships, whether ideal or not, possess. I mean confidence. It is not
till the twenties are well into that reserve and reticence take their
place in a woman's friendship; it is not till then that she questions
with herself how far she will trust her friend with her hopes, fears,
and troubles. The younger we are, the more generous, trusting, and
unsuspicious we are; which is, I suppose, the great reason why we never
make such particular friends when the period of trust is past. If your
friend is worthy of the name, trust her wholly. How can you sympathise
with or help one another if you only tell half your troubles and
difficulties? I do not mean that all should wear their hearts upon their
sleeves. Every girl has, and should have, her private sanctuary of
thought, where none may enter; but in the matters which are discussed
between friends let there be no half-confidences.

I have tried to sketch what I call an ideal friendship. If they are
rare, they are possible--most possible if you only study their
construction.

I think all thoughtful and imaginative girls long for this ideal
friendship; but I wonder if they all reflect that the ideality does not
all depend on the friend, but on