There is a value to be placed on the very trappings of girlhood which
do not in the least interfere with womanliness. At sixteen or eighteen,
perhaps at twenty, a girl can toss a jaunty little felt hat upon her
head, pin it in a twinkling above her wayward hair, tie on a bit of
blue or red somewhere about her blouse, tuck in her handkerchief in
a pardonable way, brush her short walking-skirt into becoming folds,
tie up her tennis shoes, and there she is in five minutes, prettier,
fresher, more becomingly dressed than all the older women of the
household, who have been standing before the mirror trying this effect
and that for the last hour. Ask a girl how she does it, how she manages
to make her hat bend down and up, and in and out, in all kinds of
alluring ways, and she does not know,--it belongs to girls to do such
things. Of course it does! Whatever they do must be bewilderingly
charming sometimes, because they are girls. You know, when we buy
choice roses from the gardener, we are always particular to select
those just approaching blossom. A delicacy, and yet a richness of color
and fragrance are upon them; a brightness and yet a tenderness in
tone,--the bloom is there more soft and beautiful than in the fully
opened rose. That bloom and color, that tenderness and dreamy softness,
that richness and freshness, are yours, dear girls.
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