of behaviour, are sometimes considered to be too strict, and even rebelled against by high-spirited ignorant young women as being too severe. But let no one, in her blindness or temerity, venture upon the slightest transgression of these rules, because in her young wisdom she sees no cause for their existence. Society has good reasons for planting this friendly hedge beside the path of woman, and the day will come when she will be thankful—truly thankful that her own conduct, even in minute and apparently trifling matters, was not left in early life to the decision of her own judgment, or the guidance of her own will.
It ought rather to be the pride of every English woman, that such are the conditions of society in her native land, that whether motherless or undisciplined in her domestic lot, she cannot become a member of good society, or at least retain her place there, without submitting to restrictions; which, while they deprive her of no real gratification, are at once the safeguard of her peace, the support of her moral dignity, and the protection of her influence as a sister, a wife, a mother, and a friend.
Let us then be thankful to society for the good it has done, and is doing, to thousands who have perhaps no watchful eye at home, no warning voice to tell them how far to. go, and when to go no farther. Nor can we for a moment hesitate to yield our assent to these restrictions imposed upon our sex, when we look at the high moral standing of the women of England, and think how much the tone of society has to do with the maintenance of their true interests. Let us not, however, stop here. If there is so much that is good in society, why should there not be more? Why should there still remain the trifling, the slander, the envy, the low suspicion, the falsehood, the flattery, which ruffle and disfigure the surface of society, and render it too much like a treacherous ocean, on which
