he does not like that.  It shows, he thinks, a “frivolous nature,” or “a desire to attract,” or a “tendency to flirt,” or, it is “unwomanly,” or “unworthy a true woman.”  There are some other things men say to us if several men are attentive at the same time, but I have forgotten the rest.  They are very convincing, however.  Then, when the man has made up his mind that he wants us as his wife (that grammar sounds polygamous, but my whole philosophy of life is against that idea), why, we are to be ready to drop into his arms like a ripe plum and not keep him on tenter-hooks of anxiety, because only coquettes do that.

Now I am not endeavoring to do an exceptional man justice, who will resent that somewhat broad platform.  I am only presenting the attitude of man in general, from a girl’s standpoint.  And if you will view it as referring to “other men” and not to yourself, you will be quite willing to admit that it is, in the main, true.

Now if, in order to avoid heartaches, and so be able to blame you for something you never intended and which you are not willing to shoulder, we are not to let ourselves go, when we feel like falling in love with you, do you give us leave to allow every one of you to get clear up to the proposing-point and come flatly out with the words “Will you marry me?” before we let you know whether we want you or not, or before we begin to let ourselves go?

Come now.  Own up, you men.  How well do we girls know you when you have called on us three hundred and sixty-five times in succession?  Not at all.  We know only what we can see and hear.  How well do we know you when we have been engaged to you six months?  Not at all.  We know only what you have been unable to conceal of your faults, and the virtues you have displayed in your show-windows.  How long must a woman be married to a man before she understands him thoroughly—­as thoroughly as she ought to have understood him before she ever dared to stand up at an altar and promise to love him and live with him until death did them part?

A broken engagement ought to be considered a blessed thing as a preventive of further and worse ills.  But it is not.  It militates seriously against a girl.  Not so much with men as with women.  That is one of the times, and there are many others, when men are broader and more just than women.  The ordinary man, taken at random, will say, “Probably he was a worthless fellow.”  The ordinary woman will say, “She ought to have known her own mind better.”

The odd part of all this is that, even if you men, as a body, should say to all the girls:  “Go ahead.  Encourage us to the top of your bent.  Let us propose without any knowledge based on your past actions or words as to whether we are going to be accepted or not, and we will take the result cheerfully and won’t rage or howl about it”—­that not one of us would do it.