“But she says she wants to have a good time,” urged Helen.
“Surely,” was Mrs. Wayne’s reply. “Every 39 girl is entitled to a good time, but that does not of necessity consist of spending money. I should think she wouldn’t like to be under such obligations to young men.”
“O, I guess she doesn’t think she is under obligations. She thinks they are under obligation to her for condescending to go with them. But, mother, ought a girl let a young man spend money on her?”
“I hope, my dear, when you are old enough to go out with young men that you will care too much for yourself to be willing to take expensive gifts. A certain amount of expenditure is allowable. A few flowers, a book, or a piece of music, but never elegant jewelry or articles of clothing. That is not only bad taste but it is often a direct incentive for young men of small salaries to be dishonest. Corrinne, and girls like her, do not know how much they may be responsible for young men becoming untrue to their business trusts, nor how much they might do to strengthen young men in their purposes to be honest. You remember Aunt Elsie and Uncle Harold. He is a man of means now, but he was once a poor young clerk. He admired Elsie and wanted to show her every attention, but she knew his salary would not permit extravagance; so when he first asked her to go to some public entertainment, he said he would come with a carriage at the appointed time. At once she said decidedly, ‘Then I will not go. It is not far. 40 If it is a fine night, we can walk. If it rains, we can go on the street cars. You may send me a few flowers, but we will not have an opera supper nor indulge in needless carriages!’ Of course he objected, and urged that he could afford it. ‘But I can’t,’ was her reply. And years after, when they were married, he confessed that it was a great relief to him to be able to take her about in ways that suited his purse and yet have no fear of being thought mean. Now he can buy her everything her heart can desire; but he acknowledges that he might not have been able to withstand the temptation had she in her younger days desired pleasures beyond his power honorably to provide.”
“Mother,” said Helen after a pause, as two girls passed the house with their arms about each other’s waists. “Don’t you think it silly for girls to be so ‘spooney’?”
“I certainly think it is in bad taste for them to be so publicly demonstrative, and I could wish that girls might be friends with each other more as boys are. Now, there are Paul and Winfield. Surely no girls ever thought more of each other than these two boys, and yet I fancy we would smile to see them embracing each other on all occasions, as Lucy and Nellie do.”
“I should say so! I’ve heard Paul say, ‘Old Chap,’ or seen Winfield give Paul a slap on the shoulder; but they are never silly and they’ve been friends for years. But Lucy and Nellie 41 have only been so ‘thick’ for a few weeks, and they’ll fall out pretty soon. Lucy is always having such lover-like friends and then quarreling with them. Now, she and Nellie are going to have a mock wedding next week. They call themselves husband and wife even now,—isn’t that silly?”
“It is worse than silly,—I call it wrong,” replied Mrs. Wayne. “Such morbid friendships are dangerous, both to health and morals.”
“To the health, mother? I don’t see how that can be.”
“No, I doubt if you can, but I hope that you will believe me when I tell you they are dangerous. When girls are so demonstrative, when they claim to stand to each other as man and woman, you may feel assured that the relation is unnatural and that the drain upon the nervous system is very great. I once knew a girl who actually destroyed the health of a number of girls in a school by such demonstrative friendships. She always had one devoted friend who could not live without her. I have known a girl to cry day after day and actually go home sick, because her friendship with this girl was threatened. And it is said that another girl took her own life from jealousy of this one.