In such a peculiar civilization as ours, you cannot be really getting
married at eighteen. But you may be thinking about marriage. Oh, yes!
girls think a great deal about it at that age. Perhaps I did when I
was eighteen; but that was so long ago, so very long ago! Still, for
present purposes, we will imagine I was once a girl, and thought more
or less about the boys, and liked them, too, just as you do now.
Oh, do not be so sure, you very bashful or very independent few, that
you do not care a fig for the boys, and never shall! If you feel a
kind of indifference now, or cannot see what boys are for, unless to
try their sisters, and act conceited and foolish with the other girls,
you may be on the verge of discovering that they are extremely good
for loving.
Isn't it remarkable how boys change? Why, you are so suddenly impressed
that Tom Sydney is not half as rude as he used to be! Indeed, he has
grown very polite,--he lifts his hat in such a deferential way; he
speaks with so manly a tone; he has a touch of such gentlemanly, half-
alluring kindness when he helps you over the crossing! Strange, one's
neighbors do alter so! Yes, it is a little remarkable; but it is on
both sides of the street,--girls as well as boys.
It is not the freshman year in college, nor the first month in business,
nor the first term at an evening dancing-school, which produce the
change in the boys.
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