tender and more lenient in their judgments.

In companionship whose leisure interests are good there is a sense of
freedom filled full and running over, of minds and hearts doubly rich,
of good times doubly jolly. But on the whole, girls have too little
absolute solitude; there is scarcely a girl in twenty, except the "dig,"
who is alone at all. One trouble with dormitory school life is that it
fosters leisure-wasting and time-wasting "gang" habits. A girl so
surrounded never wants to be alone a moment, either indoors or out. With
such, the blessing and blessedness of solitude should be learned, for
solitude rightly used makes strong men and women.

The woman who has leisure has a grasp upon time, is master of it instead
of being mastered by it. It is the girl whirled around in a squirrel
cage of pointless weekly and Sunday engagements who is oppressed and
mastered by her lack of freedom. And then there is the hard-pressed
future; we must lay up some leisure for that. The time when one is most
hurried is the time when one most needs the sense of freedom. The story
of the old Quaker lady who had so much to do she didn't know where to
begin, and so took a nap, is profoundly full of wisdom. When the old
lady woke up she found she had plenty of time after all, not because she
had done anything but because she had come again into a leisurely frame
of mind.

Leisure means neither a blank mind nor an empty hand. It means a holiday
taken with an eager mind, with eyes keen in their delight and knowledge,
with hands capable of some beauty or some use. All of us have leisure
to think, but not all of us think. Some of us, if friends come in
unexpectedly, will quickly pick up something and pretend to be busy.
When Watt sat by the fire watching the steam from the teakettle lift the