I like her better than I did when I was really a child, and I
hope never to part company with her.
I do not feel so much satisfaction in the older girl who comes
between her and me, although she, too, is enough like me to be my
sister, or even more like my young, undisciplined mother; for the
girl is mother of the woman. But I have to acknowledge her faults
and mistakes as my own, while I sometimes feel like reproving her
severely for her carelessly performed tasks, her habit of lapsing
into listless reveries, her cowardly shrinking from
responsibility and vigorous endeavor, and many other faults that
I have inherited from her. Still, she is myself, and I could not
be quite happy without her comradeship.
Every phase of our life belongs to us. The moon does not, except
in appearance, lose her first thin, luminous curve, nor her
silvery crescent, in rounding to her full. The woman is still
both child and girl, in the completeness of womanly character.
We have a right to our entire selves, through all the changes of
this mortal state, a claim which we shall doubtless carry along
with us into the unfolding mysteries of our eternal being.
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