BY MARGARET MEREDITH.

There is one surpassing beauty of manner which, I think, might be attained by cultivation—that of taking an interest in people who are talking to you, with the subtile added charm of seeming at leisure to enjoy them as long as they choose to stay.

With some it is natural. I was struck to-day with the sweet graciousness of a young girl, ill dressed (for her) and very busy, who almost deceived me into wasting ten extra minutes of her precious time, by the satisfied air with which she sat down beside me in her parlor and welcomed my inopportune appearance. It was not politic, to be sure, for getting her cake making done, but, ah how politic for winning admiration!

Of the few whom I have remarked, in our busy American life, as possessing this faculty supremely, one family had long lived abroad, and were people of leisure. The look of content, and of being established for an indefinite time, with which any one of them sat on the sofa before a dull chance acquaintance, was an imprint, no doubt, of their idle life, but it was also the imprint of an exquisite training. It was the quintessence of the aristocratic manner.

We do not want gilded uselessness; far better remain as we are; busy, even if chiefly for ourselves; but there are some who, in the midst of hard work, have been wise enough to leave spare time in their plan of life for casual meetings with their fellows. I think of two women, both, as it happened, the main stay of churches—churches widely removed in geography and opinion; both were responsible in the care of those churches, and both entered with marvelous industry into the details and into the drudgery of their work. I heard a servant say of one that she had never known her to utter an impatient word when cards were handed in; while her cordial ways won the hearts of all. The other, older and poorer, and not versed in the ways of the world, it was even more wonderful to see sitting hour after hour engrossed and pleased as one and another used up her morning; though the standing puzzle among all who knew her was, how she possibly found time for all she did.

This heartiness is more attractive to the small than to the great among one’s friends; for those full of attractions themselves are not so apt to be received with indifference. It is those modest as to their own fascinations who are grateful for being made welcome and at home; the shy girl just emerged from the school room to do her difficult part in society, the old lady who is painfully conscious that she knows very little about the topics of the day, the estimable young man of moderate capacity. These must be tolerated—why should they not be made happy?

I know that I am playing with edged tools, advising an attempt that is all too apt to end in affectation, even in deceit, an overdone aspect of admiration which would disgust; but you can avoid that. Really, about all you need is to deal strictly with yourself as you walk down stairs to the parlor; force yourself to stop inwardly fuming that you are interrupted, to accept the fact that this is not an interruption, but probably a better occupation for you for twenty minutes than that from which you were called, at any rate the inexorable duty of the moment, and to be discharged as such. Instead of sitting half numb and self-absorbed, talking only in the rÔle of a machine for receiving a caller, try at once to throw yourself quite away from the life upstairs out into the life of your visitor. The calls will consume a little more of your time, will average a little longer, even in spite of waiting carriages, but they will prove a recreation instead of a weariness, and you will gain twenty friends where you now gain one.

A little girl once traveled in the stage-coach with Madame La Vert, and the child’s indignant contradiction afterward: “She isn’t a fine lady at all! She’s just like me, and I love her,” made plain in a sentence the secret of her power.

Why is not this sympathetic treatment of others aimed at by all? Why should the reigning belle be so nice with her tongue and her smile, and the older woman, who probably feels the want of affection far more keenly, be quite oblivious that this same winning kindliness which she has so long ceased to exhibit, and has replaced by the dry manner of formal endurance, would, perhaps as promptly as the wand of Cinderella’s god-mother, transform some of these prim callers into life-long friends.