and that
our mothers wouldn't want to be bothered to read all the letters we
received. But I know mother doesn't think it a bother, and I wouldn't
enjoy my letters if I didn't share them with her."

"You are certainly much safer to keep in confidence with your mother,"
said Mr. Wayne, "and I should say that a young man who didn't want you
to show his letters to your mother is one you wouldn't want to
correspond with. I should be afraid that he'd be one who would show your
letters to his boy friends and perhaps make fun of them."

"O, father! Do you think that? It seems to me that wouldn't be
honorable."

"Boys do not always have the highest ideals of honor, my dear. I
remember once, when I was young, I was camping with a lot of young
fellows. I think all of them were corresponding with girls, and these
letters were common property. They were read aloud as we gathered around
the camp fire in the evening; their bad spelling was laughed at and
their silly sentimentalities talked of in ways that I am sure would
have made the girls' cheeks burn with shame. They thought, of course,
that the boy they wrote to would keep their letters as sweet secrets. I
learned a good deal that summer about girls whom I had never seen. Some
of them I came to know afterwards, and I often wondered what they would
say if I should quote from their letters some foolish sentimentality
which they imagined no one knew about except the one to whom it was
written."

"Then, father, you'd say we ought never to correspond with boys?"

"No, I didn't quite say that. I can see that a friendly correspondence
might be helpful. It seems to me that girls and boys can be a great help
and inspiration to each other. I once had a girl correspondent who wrote
most charming letters, simple recitals of her daily life with some of
her little moralizings thrown in. Perhaps I would smile at them now, but
they surely helped me to have higher ideals and made me have a great
reverence for womanhood. There was one thing about her letters that I
thought strange then, but I now think it very wise. She always signed
every letter with her full name, never with her home pet name. I have
often thought of it, and I believe it is a good plan. Certainly, if you
knew that you would sign your full name to every letter, you would not
be as apt to write foolishly as if your identity would be hidden under
some nickname. And you never know what will become of your letters. A
few days a