opinion--they have always been admired for it, and blamed if they lack it;
while men have not been so trained; therefore women have a special power
of helping men, who are, consequently, not likely to be born so particular
about these things as women are.

Always feel responsible for what you laugh at: very often people say
things tentatively to see if you will laugh: you help to fix their
standard by the way you take it, and you often throw your weight into the
wrong scale because you are afraid of seeming priggish. A man's sense of
humour is different from a woman's; when you go into the world you must be
careful not to laugh just because a man makes a joke, until you are quite
sure that it is one to laugh at. Perhaps your host makes it, and his wife
looks a trifle grave: then be quick to take your cue from her and to
notice what nice women think nice for a woman.

Very often in talking to girls and preparing them for life, the whole
question of flirtation and nonsense is left out--there is not even as much
said as in Mrs. Blackett's village, where the clergyman's wife put every
girl through a special catechism before she left to go to service, part of
which was, "Lads, Sally?" The correct answer briskly given by Sally was,
"Have naught to do with them--but if they _will_, tell mother."

The whole subject of getting married, or falling in love, or meeting a man
you _may_ fall in love with, is often smothered up out of sight, as if it
were something wrong. If you have your life so full of other interests
that it does not concern you till the real thing comes, so much the
better--you will lose the pleasantest five years of your life if you turn
your mind in this direction too soon.

What often happens is that it is plentifully thought of and talked of