HER QUESTION AND MY ANSWER
"But," says my young girl, "you talk about my being entertaining to young men, attracting them and retaining them as friends. What is their duty? And don't you think they are being considered a little too much?" Well, you see, my dear, I am not talking to young men, in the first place, and then I do not think they are being catered to too much.
Society is formed by the coming together in pleasant intercourse of women and men. Its mainspring is the family. And though our girls are not sold to the highest bidder, nor are they slaves in any sense of the word, still each one realizes that she wishes to marry, because her heart is full of love, and because it is natural to give that love to her opposite. Man, it is claimed, rules all the greater affairs of life, but it has never been claimed that he ever attempted to take away from woman her social prerogative, and this means a deal more than just deciding how to amuse one's self and how not to be bored, for it means building up a wall against wrong and showing the beauty and the sweetness of right.
My dear girl, you can do that. Society is good or bad as women make it, and about you, although you may spend your day behind the desk or be
