IDLENESS AMONG GIRLS.
My friend Mr.—— has three daughters and two sons. The girls are between eighteen and twenty-eight, one son is thirty-five perhaps, the other is about fourteen.
The father keeps a trimmings store. The oldest son is somewhere in the West, the youngest son has already left school to assist his father in the store.
The three girls do nothing whatever but dress, play a little, make calls, receive calls, and go a shopping, and, I should add, that during the summer they visit the country, for their health.
Twice the father has compromised with his creditors, and he told me a week ago, that sleep, appetite, and hope had all left him, that he had just borrowed two hundred dollars to enable his girls to go up into New Hampshire, that he saw nothing but ruin before him, that he was completely exhausted, that he had recently felt symptoms of paralysis, and that I must tell him, as a friend, what he could do to save himself from insanity.
These ejaculations culminated in his covering his face with his hands, and bursting into a flood of tears.
"Why, sir," said he, "I owe everybody. Even that faithful creature in my kitchen hasn't had twenty dollars in a year."
A FAMILY COUNCIL.
He went on: "The other day when the girls got ready to go into the country, we held our first family council. My poor wife, who is all worn out, couldn't bear to have the girls troubled with it. She thought it wouldn't do any good, and that we had better keep it to ourselves. But I said, 'no, for once we will have a fair understanding.'
"The girls were to go on Tuesday, so on Monday evening I said to them, 'now, as you are going away to-morrow, let us spend the evening, as a family, alone. I want to advise with you.' They were very good about it; they sent, and broke an engagement with the Browns, and we all got together in the parlor. I tell you it was ticklish business, though. The fact is, we never had had a perfectly frank talk about business with them.