A fifteen-year-old thinks girls will do
for some occasions, especially if the girls are his sisters. They can
fasten neck-ties very well, and save a fellow a good deal of
embarrassment at dancing-school. He wishes they wouldn't be such tell-
tales, though. But an eighteen-year-old, or a youth of twenty, cannot
conceive any thing more adorable than the winning ways of girlhood.
A boy likes a girl sometimes, just as you girls too often like each
other, because she is pretty, or bright, or pert. He is fond of a girl
at other times because the beauty of her character reveals itself in
all kinds of womanly acts. If he marries, he usually meets the deserts
of whatever fondness he cherishes. He may be happy for a while in
association with a pretty face, a saucy tongue, and a becoming costume;
but not for long,--not for long.
While you are never to forget that you are young women, and that you
owe large tributes to girls everywhere, do not exact consideration
from the boys merely because you are girls. The boys never think of
asking you to favor them. Though you are privileged to demand courtesy,
that should not prevent you from engaging in honest toil with boys,
or from associating with them in harmless pleasures. A boy appreciates
it when a girl takes hold and helps to row, to rake, or to add accounts.
I think it is extremely commendable when a boy and girl can study
together, work in the factory at the same bench, drive or walk with
one another, and are not foolishly conscious that he is a boy and she
is a girl.
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