and joy. A dancing-school having opened near their home, the daughter,
for accomplishment, was sent to it. She came from her home, modest,
and her innate spirit of purity rebelled against the liberties taken by the
dancing-master, and the men he introduced to her. She became indignant
at the indecent attitudes she was called upon to assume, but noticing a
score of young women, many of them from the best homes in the town,
all yielding to the vulgar embrace, she cast aside that spirit of modesty
which had been the development of years of home-training, and setting
her face against nature's protective warnings, gave herself, as did the
others, to this prolonged embrace set to music. Having learned to dance,
its fascinations led her an enthusiastic captive. Modesty was crucified,
decency outraged, virtue lost its power over her soul, and she spent her
days dreaming of the delights of the sensual whirl of the evening. Hardly
conscious of the change she had now become as bold as any of the women,
and loved the embrace of the charmer. The graduation of the class was,
of course, the occasion of a waltzing reception. To that reception she went,
attended by her father, who looked with a proud heart on the fulsome
greeting his dear one received. After a little the father retired, leaving his
daughter to the care of the many handsome gallants who danced attendance
upon her. The reception did not close until the small hours of the morning.
Each waltz became more voluptuous; intoxicated by sensuality, the
dancers became more bold, and lust was aroused in every breast. How
many sins that reception occasioned, I do not know; this, at least, is sure,
that this girl who entered that dancing-hall three months before, as pure as
an angel, was that night.robbed of her honor and returned to her home
deprived forever of that most precious jewel of womanhood--virtue. Her
first impulse the next morning was self-destruction; then she deluded
herself with the thought of marriage with her dancing companion, but
he still further insulted her by declaring that he wanted a pure woman
for his wife. What was her end? Shunned by the very society which