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Show Oh You. Woman To Woman. . ? By Virginia Harlan Can a woman friend be trusted? " ell, that brings about more talk. If it be a ma who imposes im-poses the trust and the woman is in love, she will show off to a magnificent advantage. She will not scruple at anything, from adroit lying to carrying around a bag of dynamite and dropping a stick every time she thinks it will be of advantage to the man of her affection. Yes, she will uproot the patch and do it cheerfully cheer-fully nay, glady. She has been known to part with her front teeth and a suit of glorious hair to keep from starvation. She may turn herself into a toothless hag and top-knotless creature of no charm whatever, but she rejoices in it and never stops to count the cost of the aftermath. When a man is in trouble, to help him is the burden of a woman's cry. In sickness she Is nothing short of a female archangel. Implanted in her is the same primeval instinct that crushed the heart of Eve as she held the body of her slain ron. It is the ineffacable maternal feeling which impels a woman to plot for, connive, dare even death itself, go through fire and flood and pestilence pestil-ence for husband or lover. All this if she loves, I repeat. Trust her? Why, you don't know what you are conversing about. With that spark of maternity is the all-absorbing thought that she must watch over and take care of him. His manliness, his education, his brilliant business busi-ness achievements, his shrewdness, his cunning are all swept aside with a wave of her hand. He belongs to her, he loves her, he is her mate. To her he is a child. Can't you realize he needs her? She may know he has far more business busi-ness astuteness than she, but she wants the or dering of his ways, and he must acknowledge that he belongs to her. The oftener he says it, the better she likes it, though she never interferes. The thought of It is sufficient to carry her on mountain top day after day. She never sees the shadows in the ' valley. j His is the heavenly and dual roles of lover and chfld. She could no more help regarding him with that protecting love than she could help breathing. She would go hungry and half-clad if by doing so she could provide for his wants and spare him the humiliation of the knowledge of her privations. I say unto you, he is her mate, her chief among ten thousand, and her little old boy all in one, and he belongs to her. He has told her so a thousand times, and he would not lie. He might fleece somebody out of their eyeballs if he met a nice, pleasant chance coming down the street, but a man would never wound that kind of a woman, and she is secure in that thought. But,-oh, you woman and woman! Can't you see them enter the arena? Do you think they care much whether thumbs are up or down? If one is a royal Bengal tigress, can't you see without with-out half looking the other is a Numldian lioness? Just watch the long, slow, soft-footed walk, I the sad droop of the head; keep your eye on the cruel, pitiless, stealthy look: it means trouble 1 and plenty of it. It Is not man to man, but woman 1 to woman. j Trust her? As the sprightly Miss Fanny Squeers remarked, remark-ed, not with any "internal inside" secret. If in a foolish moment you do trust, before you go home buy a bolt of sackcloth and several pounds of ashes and begin at once to use them liberally. Believe me, you may have to get a fresh supply Photo bj Undnwood &f Undtrwood, N, T. FIRST PHOTOGRAPH OV RECENT FLOODS IN TOKYO, JAPAN. The above scene is on the Oshu Kiado, one of the main highways In Tokyo. Notice the police boats and their occupants on the left. before you have paid for your folly. In a remote I day some female relative in climbing among the I boughs of the family tree may have slipped a I little and suffered somewhat from a bruised repu tation. I would dislike to suggest to you that the passing of three generations could dissipate the recollection of that accident in the tree. Money will do much to lessen the bruises, but, while the scar is healed, there are a few, kind sir, who will remember that "grandmother said she had often seen her of the tree fame. She was beautiful," beauti-ful," etc., but money Isn't everything. Women . have wonderful memories. I sometimes think they cultivate that faculty to the exclusion of many others. I recall one Instance In-stance particularly of the venom of woman to woman. Two widows figure in the story, one very rich and the other well born but without a penny, and in addition to poverty were her four young daughters. The woman of means positively fed, clothed and paid house rent for the entire family until the girls were able to get work. What was the reward of the benefactress of the family? fam-ily? Someone started the report that she was in love with her cousin, a married man. Maybe she was; maybe she was not. Yet this same family, the mother heading the crowd with the biggest club, never missed a chance, and I often thought made a thousand opportunities, to say the bitterest things against the woman who had kept them from actual want. Even admitting all she claimed, her lack of gratitude grati-tude was beyond belief. A man would never have done a think like that. He might have to strain the truth, but he would shield his benefactor. Don't you believe the Royal B. T. or the N. L. overlook any dark corners while they are skulking around the arena. A woman has to be pretty old or take heavily to religion to keep from sitting up and taking notice of her sex. They can sit at the bridge table and play in apparently the greatest good humor, eat" and drink of the feast provided for them and hunt an audience the next day with the most brazen faces, sit and make statements to the detriment ' of perhaps two or more dozen victims. You don't hear a single "I think," but a straight out and out, unqualified assertion that so and so Is the case. But oh, you woman to woman. |