A young girl joined a club for young people. From the first she caused anxiety. Her face was innocent and attractive, but her actions with young men were just the reverse. At last it became necessary to speak to her. It was evident that she attributed the criticism to what she termed "fussiness." Not the least modification in her manner followed. At last, after many interviews, she was told that she would never be spoken to again. If she offended in the club-room once more, she would be given her hat. That would mean that she was not to again enter those rooms. She confided to her intimate friend that no one had ever told her that what she did was wrong. After this interview, a modification of her manner was noticed, not because she was convinced she was wrong, but because she thought it wise to heed. A group of young people were returning from a picnic. Just after the homeward journey had begun, it was seen that this young girl was sitting in the lap of a young man whom she had always known; as children they lived for years in the same tenement. Beside him sat the young girl whom he had invited to the club picnic. The club girl sat so unconscious of any infringement of manners, public or private, that a young man who had grown up under the same conditions was asked what he thought of the act. He started at once to tell the girl to stand up, but was restrained. Evidently he was shocked, and the act was wrong from his standpoint, the only standpoint fair to the girl. A seat was made for the girl elsewhere, who, for the first time, showed distress, or rather anxiety, because of her own acts. Nothing was said to her.
Occasion was made to speak to the young man who had kept his seat and let the girl sit in his lap. He was a working man, and his hands showed it. All his life of twenty-two years he had lived under tenement-house conditions.
"Frank, would you marry a girl who sat in a man's lap in a railroad train?" he was asked.
"No," he responded indignantly.
"Do you suppose you are the only man in the world who has that feeling? What right have you to let any girl cheapen herself so that the man who saw her with you, doing what you permitted, if you did not suggest and encourage, would not marry her?"
The man's face grew white. He had a sister of whom he was very fond and very proud.
"What would you do to the man who permitted your sister, when she was tired, to do what you permitted a girl to do to-night—a girl who has no brother to watch over her?"
The young man was six feet tall. He rose to his feet, and, raising his hands toward the starlit sky, he said:
"As true as there is a God above me, I will never while I live let any girl do what I am not willing my own sister should do anywhere."
After a moment's quiet, the chaperon said: