The Girl and Her Religion by Margaret Slattery
page 47 of 134 (35%)
page 47 of 134 (35%)
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lost." And so they made their plans. The daughter was not an adept in
learning the rapid succession of combination dances wherein orientalism, the harem, the submerged tenth, and the various beasts of the field and fowls of the barnyard figured, so the first step was to secure a teacher who would correct her errors and give her skill in the performances which had robbed so many of her friends of all reserve and had taught them the abandonment of motion. She had tried to take a nap that afternoon but sleep would not come though she obeyed all the rules for capturing it. Her father's blood was in her veins and even her training had failed to obliterate all of the hard sense which had helped him pass his neighbors in the race for money which should win the coveted title "A Success." She did not like the dances, she knew she was not equal to the round of varied functions that lay before her. But she was a worshiper--she blindly followed Fashion--she bowed in the presence of Pleasure--and at last sighing wearily, murmured softly, "Well, there is no way out. Mother has set her heart on it and one might as well die as to be out of everything"--she laid her sacrifice upon the altar, took up a book and stopped thinking. It is easy to think that she is but one, and perhaps the great exception, that because she is not physically strong she shrinks from the long gay season. But she is only one of many, some very young and strong, and some in the twenties who have hearts and find them unsatisfied, who long to be free but held in the grip of the twin idols at last bow down and worship. In the home of a shoemaker where food was coarse but plentiful and where |
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