e nervous system is very
great. I once knew a girl who actually destroyed the health of a number
of girls in a school by such demonstrative friendships. She always had
one devoted friend who could not live without her. I have known a girl
to cry day after day and actually go home sick, because her friendship
with this girl was threatened. And it is said that another girl took her
own life from jealousy of this one.

"Friendship is a grand thing when it is true and worthy, but a morbid,
unnatural sentimentality does not deserve the name of friendship and I
should be very sorry to see you fall into the toils of a morbid,
unnatural relation with another girl. Yet I should be pleased to see
you having a sincere, womanly, noble affection for another girl, one
which would not waste itself in sentimentality but be able to rise to
heights of grand renunciation."

"I think I understand you, mother, and I promise you I will try to hold
the highest ideals of friendship."

Such talks as these brought mother and daughter into such close
companionship that Helen was not afraid to bring her mother the deepest
problems of her young life.

It was Saturday afternoon, and mother and daughter were sitting together
sewing. The rain was pouring, so that there was little fear of visitors,
and while Mrs. Wayne was discussing with herself how she could begin to
talk to her daughter of her approaching womanhood, Helen suddenly said,
"Mother, what is the matter with Clara Downs? She is going into
consumption, they say, and I heard Sadie Barker say to Cora Lee that it
was because Clara did not change into a woman. What did she mean? I
thought we just grew into women. Isn't that the way?"

"You didn't ask Sadie what she meant?"

"O, no, the girls acted as if they didn't want me to hear, and then, I'd
always rather you'd tell me things, for then I feel sure that I know
them right."

This little testimony of her trust in her mother furnished Mrs. Wayne
with the desired opportunity, and she said, "In order that you may
clearly understand Sadie's remark I shall have to make a long
explanation of how girls become women."

"Why, mother, don't we just grow into women?"

"Well, my dear, I shall have to say both yes and no to that question.
Girls do grow and become women, but women are something more than
grown-up girls. This house is much bigger than it was two years ago. Did
it just grow bigger?"

"Why, no, not exactly. There are no more room