688 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



probably those which are rather risque. She can converse, perhaps, 

 in two or three different modern languages. As a general rule 

 her French can scarcely be understood by the foreign attaches at 

 Newport. The girl is absolutely unequipped for real life, and the 

 man of sense, who has passed the boyish age and is looking for a 

 partner for life, knows this. Possibly this is one cause why there are 

 comparatively few marriages in our best society. What man is less 

 likely to seek as wife a woman who knows something about the 

 care and value of money? It is strange that a father should be so 

 blinded to the best interests of his daughter. Is it because he con- 

 siders her intellect so far below that of his son that he makes no 

 effort to instruct her in regard to the care of money? The only thing 

 she knows about money is how to spend it — generally on herself, for 

 clothes and jewels. Perhaps on the first of the month, when the bills 

 for his daughter's extravagance pour in on him, he is vexed; but if 

 his fortune is large, and it is no inconvenience for him to pay them, 

 he generally does so without a murmur. " Let her have a good time 

 while she is young," he soliloquizes. 



But stop a moment and consider. What you sow you reap is as 

 true in this material concern as in the world of agriculture. The 

 fond parent by his indulgence and neglect is sowing the seeds of 

 extravagance, perhaps those of want. Years hence she may reap 

 the fruit of his ill-judged kindness in fostering habits of reckless 

 expenditure. 



In a few years the father dies; his property is divided; the 

 daughter receives her share. If she is married to a good business 

 man who has time to take charge of her fortune, possibly, during her 

 husband's lifetime, the difficulty is bridged over. But the chances 

 are she may not be married, or again the man she has selected as 

 husband may be worthless as a business man. It is not to be ex- 

 pected that a brother (even if she is fortunate enough to possess one), 

 however kind, will overburden himself with the manifold details 

 of looking after the property of a sister. He has his own interests, 

 which demand his attention. He thinks his duty accomplished when 

 he has chosen a man to look after his sister's affairs whom he helieves 

 to be reliable. The person whom he has appointed as guardian over 

 his sister's interests may have an honest and high character, but that 

 is no guarantee that in a moment of weakness he may not yield to 

 the temptation of abusing the trust. He knows the woman is abso- 

 lutely ignorant of how her affairs are being conducted, and in all 

 probability would not be the wiser if he appropriated some of her 

 fortune to his own uses. Her very ignorance is his security. Who 

 can not recall several such cases? If each day for half an hour the 

 father had instructed his child in the essentials of business — how to 



