Dear girls, be happy, be merry, have all the harmless fun that the good God, who wishes you to be happy, sends your way. But for the sake of the man who may one day seek you and win you—for the sake of the womanhood that he would honor—let all men know that you are labeled—“HANDS OFF!” and that you are not to be cheaply gained. They will love you better, respect and honor you more for that knowledge.
A serious mistake often made by girl students and working girls is taking the men who call on them to their rooms. In most cases these rooms are fitted up with couches to look much like sitting-rooms, but the men know they are not sitting-rooms, and the girl who receives men thus suffers for it in name if not in fact. It is a thing that a self-respecting girl can not afford to do, even once. If she expects to have men call on her, she must choose a room in a house where she may occasionally have the use of a parlor. The ruling may seem hard, but there is no getting round it.
No young girl can afford to accept a luncheon or dinner invitation from a married man or, indeed, any attention whatsoever. It does not matter that he may be an “old friend of the family,”—those who see her may not know this and, even if they do, may not acquit her of harm. For similar seasons, a girl employed as secretary in a man’s office should take care that the relation between her and her employer is purely one of business.
GOOD TASTE IN JEST
DELICACY IN CONVERSATION
One of the unfailing tests of good breeding is what one laughs at. Without becoming priggish, a girl should discriminate between what is a fit subject for jest and what is entitled to her reverence. As a rule, jests about birth, death and marriage are to be avoided. A special word of suggestion must be given in connection with the first of these subjects. If you are to speak of a woman who is to become a mother, say frankly that she is expecting or bearing a child. The euphemisms employed in place of this plain phrase are unspeakably vulgar. It is never vulgar to be frank if the person and the circumstances justify the introduction of the subject at all. One must often wish for more of the old-fashioned reserve on intimate topics. A critic of modern women said of them recently: “Among themselves, women lose more delicacy than any man could take from them.” When one listens aghast to the talk of some modern women, one can but echo the statement. Akin to this unbecoming freedom of speech is the lack of consideration sometimes shown to an expectant mother by her friends. Comment in such instances one would suppose would be recognized as the height of indelicacy, but thoughtlessly, and in a spirit of jest, remarks are made that cause a sensitive person to wince. Unless the mother-to-be confides her sacred expectations, she has every right to have them treated with the respect of silence, and only a vulgar-minded woman will intrude upon her.