Green Mountain Freeman

The Family Circle.

Rings on their Fingers,

"I don't care what you say: I shall if I like." said a young girl as she ran away from her companion. "Oh, Amy. I am so sorry for you!" exclaimed her friend, bursting into tears. "Well, what are you crying about?" retorted the first, returning to her fellow's side. "I am crying because I can't help it," was Adelaide's answer, "and I can't help crying because it makes me unhappy to see you behave in that manner. I am only sixteen years old, and you are nearly the same age, so you don't want me to lecture you. Besides, we are not babies, and we both know what is right. But it gives me dreadful pain, darling, to see you running about the streets on the Sabbath (on needless, any day) with your shoulders bare, and nothing on your head but a stray bit of ribbon blowing in the wind, and gilt and glass false jewels about your neck and hands. And then, to see you stop and dance in front of the organs with any stranger who happens to be there; oh, it makes me feel so miserable that I wish I was dead!"

"Why, what's it to you, and what's the harm in it?" answered Amy. "We must all dress ourselves, and we can't do without a little exercise and amusement."

"I will reply to your questions," said Adelaide, still sobbing. "I'll tell you what it is to me. You know, dear Amy, how I have always loved you, and how I thought you loved me ever since we were very little children. Well then, darling," she continued, putting her arm around Amy's neck, "If I see you do anything that I feel is wrong, are you astonished that it makes me unhappy? This time there was no answer: but Amy looked earnestly into her friend's face, and then cast her eyes toward the ground.

"And now," Adelaide went on to say, "you ask me what's the harm in it. I wish I could tell you all I feel about this. See, dearest Amy, how fast we have been growing lately; we shall soon be women. Indeed, although we are at school, we hardly are children any longer. Well, then, it seems so unnatural un-womanly for a girl to walk or behave in the streets in such a manner as to make the people stare at her."

"I don't think I ever did that," Amy answered in a subdued tone.

"You don't think you do that I am sure," was the reply of Adelaide. "It is just because you are thoughtless, my dearest old friend," she added with a kiss. "...that you do and say things that almost break my heart, and-"

"Oh, you're a great deal too soft and serious ever to enjoy yourself," interrupted Amy; "indeed I can't tell what it is makes me like you so much."

"I don't want to ask the reason why you do," said Adelaide, "I am quite content to know that you do love me, and I hope our friendship will always grow stronger and stronger."

"It won't if you are so fond of finding fault," said Amy.

"I am not fond of finding fault," her companion answered; "but if I could see you do wrong without trying to persuade you to do what I think right, I should be very wicked indeed."

"Only fancy now," said Amy, laughing "to hear you talking of being wicked. Why you are a perfect angel, and nobody could ever hope to be as good as you."

"Don't talk nonsense, Amy," Adelaide replied. "I am no angel, and we can all try to be better and better every day."

"What do you call being good?" Amy asked abruptly.

"Well, to be good," answered Adelaide, "we must not do anything that can make God angry with us."

"And do you think that God will be angry," Amy persisted, "If I dress as nicely as I can, and people take notice of me? I can't help that."

"Do you forget then," Adelaide inquired "that third chapter of Isaiah which our teacher explained last week? Come home with me and let us read it again together."

In less than five minutes they were sitting side by side, and Adelaide's clear voice might have been heard with earnest emphasis uttering the words of warning addressed by the prophet to the girls of his period:

"And the Lord said, Forasmuch as the daughters of Zion are proud, and walk with stretched forth necks and casting about their eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet:

Therefore will the Lord smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will discover their secret parts.

In that day will the Lord take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and the round tires like the moon,

The chains, and the bracelets, and the mufflers,

The bonnets, and the ornaments of the legs, and the headbands, and the tablets, and the earrings,

The rings, and nose jewels,

The changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins,

The glasses, and the fine linen, and the hoods, and the vails.

And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead of well set hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girdle of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty."

Here followed a silence which at length was broken by Amy.

"I never should have thought," she said "that the prophet should have taken so much notice of women's dress, or that God would have been displeased because they wore nice things."

"Our teacher told us," answered Adelaide, "that that was not the reason for God's displeasure; but he became so angry because the women were always thinking and talking of dress and finery and tried how to make themselves attractive, and thought and cared for nothing else: And so they naturally became immodest and wicked. And we were also told that children sometimes fall into these wild habits, which grow with them and cause them and those who love them, unhappiness as they become older. And," added the young preacher, gravely, "I believe that."

"Well, at all events," said Amy, "I will try to be more like you, dearest Adelaide, in my dress and my conduct; although perhaps it will be difficult at first, yet I will try, I say; for it must be a dreadful thing to be deserving of such a horrible punishment as that with which God threatened those unhappy girls in Jerusalem. I must have been thinking of something else, I'm afraid, when our teacher was reading the chapter, for I'm sure I don't recollect that I ever heard it before."

"Ah, my Amy," said Adelaide, with a sigh, "how often we let our thoughts wander when we are in the school room or the synagogue! It has a fortuitous infusion of Religious Knowledge.