is a worldly one. I speak only
of young daughters. If a girl follows her mother's wishes about society
till she is twenty-four or five, and still retains her first aversion to
it, it seems to me she has earned the right to be the judge of her own
actions, and if she had been really docile and sweet-tempered all the
way through, I believe the most worldly minded mother would be ready to
yield. It is only when the daughter has combated her parents all the
time that they believe her to be unreasonable and obstinate and
deserving of coercion. The point is, that she must make her stand for a
principle and not for a whim.

One reason that some girls fear society is that they feel awkward and
have nothing to say. This is often the case with intellectual girls.
They will not descend to the silly conversation which is more pleasing
than it ought to be from the pretty girls of their set, and they know it
would be out of place to talk of anything which really interests them.
They do not want to be called blue-stockings even by young men they
despise. But the agonies such girls suffer in society are unnecessary.
There is no reason why any girl should talk very much. Of course if she
is not a beauty or a graceful dancer she has no other way of attracting
attention, but it is not necessary to attract attention. If she is quiet
and unobtrusive and sweet-tempered she need not suffer from
mortification even if she does not find much to enjoy. I remember a
young girl whose great shyness made it a terror to her to meet any
strangers. Besides this, she felt so little interest in commonplace
people that she had no sufficient motive to subdue her fear. At last as
she was on the point of refusing to go to a very small and informal tea
party a friend not much older than herself talked seriously to her,
explaining that her course would seem morbid and selfish to others, and
might be so in truth. The young girl respected her friend, and making a
heroic effort to control herself determined to accept the invitation. "I
am going," she said to herself, "to show Ellen that I am not too
obstinate to take her advice, and I don't care how I appear." So she sat
still in a corner and listened to the conversation, which was indeed
preternaturally stupid. She felt perfectly at her ease and was quite
unconcerned about "making conversation." If anybody asked her a question
she answered simply without cudgeling her brains for any wise or witty
reply. By and by