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Show I Sympathetic Chaperon Talks ITv EAR GIRLS Insist upon knowing I ynomc trade or profession, and know it well enough to make 'your living by It. Do not take it up as n makeshift, saying to yourselves, "I'll do this until come one comes along and asks me to : marry him," but go into It in n wholehearted, whole-hearted, business way. This will not be difficult if you choose something for which you have a decided inclination. Perhaps you may never marry. Perhaps the father who can give you all you want may lose his money and be unable to keep the home together. Perhaps if you do marry your husband may be a poor business man, or he may become an invalid, or die and leave you with children to care for. Then the desporato need of money to educate and care for them can be met by your skill in something you learned, and learned well, when you were a girl. I have seen and known girls who wert brought up with every imaginable luxury become the breadwinners of the family. I have one in mind as I write a beautiful beauti-ful girl of nineteen whose father had been very wealthy. This girl had been given everything she wished for all her life; had been educated edu-cated in fashionable schools, had travelled and studied abroad. Her father lost nib money. Is'ot part of it, but all he had-' his home, everything. This girl was the youngest of a large family, the only one at home, the child of his old age. It was impossible for the father to rehabilitate himself, so this delicately brought up girl, who never had been without a personal per-sonal maid and every conceivable luxury, turned the one practical talon she possessed pos-sessed to use. " "What did she do, Miss Dawson?" inquired in-quired Grace. Her father had just mot with reverses, and she was anxious to di -something to help, so was interested in my little lecture. She always had had a talent for do- 1 signing. Many of her girl friends used ' to come to her to design their party frocks, and often she made them from the sheer love of doing it. Then she studied designing de-signing for her own pleasure, never dreaming dream-ing she would be obliged to make a living by it. When it became necessary for her to support her father and mother as well as herself sjie went to these people, friends and companions of her days of plenty, and sewed for them. At first in their own homes, then in a little establishment of her own. She knew her business so well, although learned when she had no need, that she could charge big pricos, and before she was, thirty years old she was making ten tbousnnd a year. Ilcr father and mother arc in consequence spending their last years in comfort. "Wasn't she wonderful?" Grace breathed. "Only wonderful in knowing how to do some one thing so well that when necessity neces-sity arose she could put it to practical use," I replied. -There's another thing, girls. You all expect to marry, but the economically independent girl can wait until the right man comes along instead of taking the first or even the second because her family expect it and show her thnt tbey do, and that it is her duty to make way for the others especially if thcro are younger sisters. |