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Show A PRETTY PARADOX. Attractive Way of Borne Young Lad lei Purie at Well as Please You. "I have lived forty years and I cannot rcakn thora out yet." It was tho editor of a well known tnagszine talking on the subject of young girls. "What am I to think of the one that bothered me for half an hour this morning?" morn-ing?" he asked. "She is a bright writer and we use some of her work. I know her father. Nice man, wealthy, brings up his girls with great care. This is Helen, his youngest. She floated into the office this morning, looking astonishingly astonish-ingly stylish and elaborato in a pure white dress, white gloves, white shoes and big, black lace hat. I asked her abont her father, and then she began to rattle, on about the way she was passing the summer ont on the Hudson. "Papa has fitted up the cupola of the house for me," said she. "I had some fun painting the walls myself. Thcro are rugs and a table, and some jolly easy chairs, and I can take my friends up there in the evening and we can make as much noiso as we want without disturbing disturb-ing the family. It's real fun when there are any men about. A friend of mine came up the other day, and I want to tell yon something, if you'll promise truly to keep it a secret. This friend is an awfully handsome fellow and I just knew that Mignonne that's my chnm, you know would try to get him away from me. "Mignonne bet that if we took him up into the cupola after dinner he would try to kiss her before he tried to kiss me. That was equivalent to declaring heraelf more attractive than I, and it mado me mad, I tell you. But I took her bet and that night we all went to tho cupola. Pretty soon it grew dark and no ono Baid a word about lighting the gas. Well, I won the bet. Jack tried to kiss me and never noticed Mignonno at all!" I looked at tho chatterer rather severely severe-ly and asked if Jack succeeded in his effort to kiss her. Instantly her animated ani-mated face grew haughty and angry in its expression. "I am not in tho habit of permitting young men to kiss me," she said in freezing freez-ing tones. "But," said I, "you let him try. In what manner did he try?" "Oh," she replied, "he put his arm around my waist, and we struggled about a good deal for a minute or so, and he pleaded with mo to let him kiss me just once, if only behind the ear. It was fun, and then it was such a jolly good one on Mignonne, She had to mope all by herself." "If you will find a moro baffling paradox," para-dox," continued the editor, "than the girl who considers it a joke to struggle with a young man in a cupola, but grows rigid when it is presumed that she would consent to be kissed, I would like to examine ex-amine it. I am free to confess that the young lady of these times and parts is beyond my understanding." New York Letter. |