Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1877 — A Few Words to Girls. [ARTICLE]

A Few Words to Girls.

A well-bred girl will not laugh and talk so loudly tbatshe will attract attention and cause annoyance. Conversation, when carried on in public conveyances, should not, as a rule, be keyed so high that indifferent strangers can hear the whole of it. Nor will you let yourselves talk about your friends or associates, mentioning their names, and talking of their engagements, their follies or their eccentricities. Family affairs should not be discussed in a loud and animated way where all the world is privileged to take notes. Let me illustrate my meaning. One day not long ago I sat in a car and heard, quite against my will, the details of a domestic quarrel, related with evident zest unit satisfaction by two good-looking young women. Finally, one said, with an air almost of triumph, “You know what a pretty girl Harriet was, and how nicely she used to dress? Well, she’s perfectly hdrrid now; you never would know her! And she’s growing so Sid and plain! My mother says it’s no wonder her husband is ashamed to be seen with her.” You see what a disagreeable impression was made upon my mind, not concerning the absent Harriet, for, whom I felt sincerely sorry, but with regard to the young people who were coolly telling over her troubles; rolling them like sweet morsels under their tongues, and quite regardless all the while as to whether or not anv|>ody heard them. Nothing is coarser, more repulsive, and

a surer sign of vulgarity in the grain,-than bold, indelicate, lorwaid conduct of this kind in public places. Yet I know young girls who are not vulgar, not coarse, not unrefined, who, through mere giddiness and thoughtlessness, offend in this way, and bring harsh criticism upon themselves. They are regarded as far worse than they really are, and they lose what is girlhood’s most attractive charm, the grace of modesty, by their unfortunate and hoydenish manner. Exquisite manners, let me tell vou, are worth several other polite accomplishments put together. W hen I see a schoolgirl who remembers to offer h“- seat to an older lady or an elderly gentleman; who remembers to give the newspapet to her father when he comes down to breakfast, and has only a few minutes to read its word sheaf of news; who remembers that it is not kind to hurry her eldest sister’s reading of some attractive book, nor polite to begin the book till the other has finished it; who remembers to shut the doors softly, and to find places in the Bible for aged eves; to be good to the little hindering ones who are always craving something from sister, and ‘who remembers always to be a lady everwhero, I am sure that I have found one that will be a queen at home, if not of society. A graceful, gracious, tender, considerate woman by and by. From the sweet, half-opened bud there will be evolved the rich perfection of the it vely flower. You must think it troublesome sometimes to be so particular as to the way you speak to the people in your own house. “It is only brother Dan or cousin Matilda,” you say; “why should I modulate my voice, and soften my tones, and be so gentle in my bearing just to them?” Because it is the being lovely and courteous and winsome every day and all day, to the brother and cousin, to the companion and friend, to the child and the servant, which will mold you into a gentlewoman, whose manners will be as much a part of herself as the inner nber of her character. To such a one it will be as impossible to commit an act of rudeness as to tell a lie, and as natural to nay and do agreeable things as to put on her gloves before going to church. And now for more advice. Do not use slang. The average school girl has, 1 regret to say, quite a vocabulary of slang, all ready for use. Young ladies who io)k like the very pinks of propriety allow themselves to utter phrases which are scarcely excusable in their brothers, and which shockingly offend every tradition of elegance and every canon of taste. They do it for fun, and once in a while, as they think, forgetting That they are forming a habit which may not only become a’ hateful blot on their beauty, but which may seriously hinder and obstruct them at some future period. “By thy words thou art condemned, and by thy words thou art justified,” we are told in the Book qf Infinite Wisdom.— Mrs. M. E. Songster, in Christian at Work.