It is a pleasure to see a girl look at a boy without
blushing, and to observe a boy look into a girl's eyes without
immediately lowering his lashes.
Why is this susceptibility? It is not because boys and girls are always
to fall in love when they meet. Every girl has a work to do for the
boys,--some traits in their characters to discountenance, some features
to encourage. How can she do this, if she is always thinking, Maybe
he loves me? Work with the boys she must: join in merry-making and
in whimsical enjoyments, why should she not? but in her gayest moment
let her be mindful, not of a difference in sex, but of the fact that
both a boy and a girl owe deference to each other, courtesy, kindness,
and conformity, as of friend with friend.
It is quite possible for young women to have friends among the young
men without this friendship developing into a strong affection. You
do not know, girls, how valiantly you are defended by the boys. Boys
are usually such uncommunicative creatures! But touch their friendship,
and they will throw a volley of rhetoric right in among a crowd of
gossipers. Slow to receive favors from you, as they sometimes seem,
they never forget a kindness done by you.
Now suppose your association with boys does sometime grow into a love
for a young man,--just suppose the case. Ought you to marry him? Of
course I don't know: I am not capable of advising, on account of my
singularity.
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