Make yourself worth having, and men will want to have you. Strive to cultivate a true womanliness and to become an efficient person. Be a girl who can help herself, who is not ignorant of work or too lazy to do it. Do not be a mere toy whom men will flirt with and then drop when they want to marry a woman who will be a helpmeet. Sensible men do not want to marry a bundle of nothing for a wife. When they are cheated into doing so, they repent it all their lives. You do not want to think that the man whom you will marry is going to repent the act. I know I would rather die on my wedding-day. I think that if a man to whom I was married should hint by word or deed of such a repentance, I would feel that my life was a complete failure, and should want to go out of it then and there.
Be accomplished and brilliant if possible, but above all things prepare yourself to be a helpmeet for a man. Men like talents in a girl, especially music; but a man likes to have his wife know how to keep house. Learn that. Learn to make all sorts of garments and to cook, even if you are wealthy.
CHAPTER III.
THE GIRL WHO WINS.
Being an attractive girl whom all men like is not exactly the same thing as setting about deliberately to win some one man’s heart. It has been said that the girl thinks of matrimony before the man does. He goes on blindly and thoughtlessly until he is so deep in love that he cannot retreat; while from the very start she thinks whether or not she would like to wed him.
It may be that you know some young man whom in a womanly way you would like to win. Let us suppose that in the secret recesses of your heart you have decided that you would like to marry him.
In the first place, you must not fall deeply in love with him. If you fail, you do not want to be broken-hearted; and too, when a girl is really up and down in love, she loses control of herself. She is no longer sure of herself and of her conduct. You must keep cool and calculating. You must admire the man, and feel that at that time he is the only one you could love. Lose just enough of your heart so that, when he is won and asks for your love, you can give it to him.
You must be able to arrange your mode of warfare, and always have perfect possession of yourself. There must be no silly excitement when he is present, and downcast face when he is away. Such a course would surely provoke comment; and your conduct must not be commented upon. No one must be allowed to suspect that you are interested in him. It is not your province in any way to go a-wooing; but you can work wonders in the way of winning the man you want. I have read that a woman may marry whom she will. I almost believe she can. You cannot, however, go about in an open way as a man can. With him the battle is sometimes half won when he makes it known that he wishes marriage. With you it would be all lost.
You must never run after a man. Make yourself so attractive that he will seek you. Then it is all in your own hands. You can keep him beside you. You may have to wait some time for him to come. Be patient. Nothing is ever accomplished without patience. An impatient, nervous anxiety on your part will be likely to spoil everything. Never go where you know he will be and where he does not expect you, if you can avoid doing so. Better, by far, let him miss you where he anticipates seeing you than to see too much of you. His disappointment will show him how much he is interested in you.
Do not hesitate to let him see that you have a modest, maidenly interest in him. Men like that. It must be done in a retiring way as if you did not intend to have him see it, but could not help yourself. While a man will boast of a girl running after him, this little secret of yours, which by his acuteness(!) he has discovered, he will keep sacredly to himself. The very modesty with which you try to veil it will heighten its value in his eyes.
Do not hesitate to let him see by your greeting that he is welcome. I do not mean that you are to be effusive. It is done by your smile, your look, more than by words. Girls make the mistake of greeting a man coolly in fear of appearing forward or of showing a regard. Never be cool to the man you want to win. Ward McAllister says in his “Society as I Have Found It”: “The value of a pleasant manner is impossible to estimate. It is like sunshine; it gladdens. You feel it, and are at once attracted to the person without knowing why.”