Page:Advice to young ladies on their duties and conduct in life - Arthur - 1849.djvu/143

Rh free air, that is even more offensive to good sense and propriety. A little more confidence will correct the one, and a little more modesty the other. Both are exceedingly unpleasant to meet with, though the former is much more tolerable to men of true feeling and discernment than the latter. These latter will always find plenty of young men ready to gossip, and flirt, and take liberties of speech with them, that the self-respect of any modest girl would cause her at once to repel; but the crowd they gather around them is far from being a crowd of real admirers; or, if weak enough to admire, they are far from being such admirers as a true woman would wish to have. They are mostly silly boys, or men who have lost all true respect for woman.

On first going into company, a pure-minded, truly modest, inexperienced girl, will naturally feel a degree of reserve and embarrassment, especially on meeting with and being introduced to strange young men. This feeling of reserve she should not seek to throw off, unless the men have received their introduction to her through her father or brother, or some particular friend of the family, in whom her parents evidently place great confidence. When this is the case, politeness requires that she should endeavor to