Page:An address delivered by the Hon. Mrs. Welby to the married women of Newton on the first Thursday in Lent, 1872.djvu/15

This page has been validated.

11

elsewhere—for it is wonderful what example will do—can only be attained by all of us setting this object steadily before us, and determining that from this time forward we will do our very utmost to keep the girls of this parish from evil.

Those among us who are mothers, or who have the charge of young girls, must remember that watchfulness is most necessary. When a girl goes wrong it is often far more the fault of her mother than her own. She has probably been allowed in her school days to run about the streets of an evening, hearing and seeing mischief of all kinds, and, when older, has been allowed to receive her sweetheart alone at hours which are most unseemly; or her dishonour has been openly winked at, and held to be nothing wrong at all, as it was "under promise of marriage."

Now, I daresay, some of you have thought that the rules observed on this estate about married sons and daughters not being allowed to live with their parents when there was not