Show kathleen norris says pay great price for bell syndicate service S V Q my married lile was until a man I 1 knew in college turned up in our ne the story 01 our affair is not new all the lessons in the world can 9 save me irom what is going on now by KATHLEEN NORRIS 0 LANGUAGE is strong 9 NO N enough to convince young boys that theft and forgery are wrong and not merely wrong in being punishable crimes wrong because of what they do to a boy boys s character even if he is never found out wrong in boyhood because the stolen quarter or the forged school excuse are steps to more serious forgeries and thefts and once schooled well in those directions it takes heroic fortitude it takes indeed a complete change of personality to resist later temptations in the same way I 1 wish I 1 could find words impressive enough to help girls to see just how great is the price women have lave to pay for that thrilling giving in to the young lovers of school and college days it if your husband told you one of these cosy winter evenings that during his senior year at college he supported himself entirely by stealing and forging you would be horrified you laugh it off tell him that it make the slightest difference to you you could not honestly say 1 I love you tor for what you are dear not fiot for or what you were having sold his honor once you would feel and the world would feel he might sell it again and in exactly the same way a man knows that a girl who was reckless in giving her favors in girlhood is not going quite suddenly to attain an e entirely different position toward what ought always to be the sacred symbol of her honor these are old fashioned phrases and to girls mine seems an old fash boned attitude but I 1 can assure them that viewed in the light of later years they will see the whole thing differently it would be easier casier for a young wife to explain to her husband that she lifted some money out of the department store cash register when she was working there years before her marriage than chanto to explain that she was intimate for a few months with one of the men who is known to her husband in business burled secrets reappear of course if she can avoid it and hope permanently to avoid it a girl tell her prospective husband these things but that security always as sound as it deemi seems hardly a day goes by without bringing me a desperate letter from some young wife who has supposed her secret long forgotten and buried many of these women say that feeling it would be more comfortable to admit to the affair before marriage and start on an apparently honest basis they have softened the story by saying that the man wis was someone you never met he died the following year this does smooth things over tor for the moment few men especially in anticipation of an immediate marriage to an adored woman will waste time on jealousy of a dead man but matters are much worse when the perverse turn of events brings this man into contact with the family again and the unsuspecting husband is perhaps cordial to him so that the wife must either make a clean breast of the whole thing or put up with the insufferable situation of having a bechet with one of the guests of the house bouse that would crush hir her husbands NOT WORTH WORM IT no amount of good advice will keep some girls from saying to themselves everyone else does it wily why I 1 so they willingly give away their future security and peace of mind perhaps they do 1 get away with re ft for a while but sooner or later they must come face to face with their earlier indiscretion only to find that it really worth itaster it after all be sure to read ka kathleen hleen norris advice to the 1 J G of this letter a happily married woman whose girlhood folly ahr threatens eadens to destroy her home and the th e love of her invalid husband pride and faith in her if it were made known such a case is JG who writes me from georgia when my loved him says her letter but now after 11 II years of it unclouded happiness I 1 know that my early love was only a shadow of what real love could bel be he is not a strong t rong man we live for our garden our books and our one daughter reggie was invalided invalid ed ater a terrible bout with pneumonia four our years ago and we took what capital we had and bought a tiny farm arm which my nine year old ra rachael c hael and I 1 have brought to the point of being beihl an asset rather than a liability meanwhile reg had started writing little bookish essays at first for or which he was not paid later more ambitious literary studies one of which is to be published in book term form in the spring our lives were perfect perfect perfect until a man I 1 used to know as a college student turned up in the neighborhood the story of our old affair Is no new one to you I 1 thought it concerned only ourselves I 1 was away from home for or the first time and every other girl did i it why not I 1 the 15 years between that time and this have been disciplinary years and I 1 know they have made in me a finer and wiser woman than anything that was promised by the nature of 0 that girl of 0 19 but all the lessons in the world cant save me from rom what Is going on 1 now Is I 1 suppose you would call it blackmail victor amuses reggie who calls him a rough diamond and victor wants to come and live with us he has no job no money no ambition he has grown heavy and lazy but on the three occasions when he has called he has as I 1 say made himself amusing and outlined what he would like to do with the farm arm to develop it reg heg divorce vorce me or leave me the letter concludes but his faith in me his pleasure in what he calls my itly illy girlhood would receive a terrible shook shock he Is not strang pe he cannot go about as other men do he has so few pleasure sl his utter pride tn in rachael and me is the greatest of them all ive written J JG G telling her that the only way out is the way of lull full confession that means she can dismiss the odious victor in no uncertain terms and then resume her happy way of life with no further reference to the cloud that has come up so suddenly victor w will III have her old letters of course and she the sting of old memories and reg will have to replace his idealistic love for his wife with something less fragile less perfect I 1 wonder what her answer would be today if she could hear that girt girl of 18 15 years ago asking wha a the difference |