It has sometimes seemed to me that theatrical road life with a one-night-stand company would be less brutalizing to the finer sensibilities, and less lowering to the ideals of a young girl, than the method of work required of many newspaper reporters in America to-day.  The editor who scores the actress for lax morals seems often to ignore the fact that there is a mental as well as a physical prostitution.

Look to it that you do not trail your banner of noble womanhood in the dust, at the demand of any editor or syndicate.  Keep your purity of pen, as well as your chastity of body, and believe no man who tells you that you will get on better in the world by selling either.  There is room higher up.

To Nanette

A Former Maid

Curiously enough, my dear little Nanette, I was thinking about you, and wishing to know something of you, the very day your letter came.

Of many who have been helpers in my employ, you were one of the few who seemed to care more for me than for the wages I paid.

There was between us that ideal condition which I wish might exist between all employers and employees.  You wanted the work you were fitted to do, and I wanted such work done.  You were glad of the money it brought you, and I was glad to recompense you.  You wanted appreciation and sympathy and consideration aside from your earnings, and I wanted a personal interest in my affairs, and a friendly wish to please me, aside from the mere work well done.  You never seemed to me less womanly or less refined because you were a wage-earner, and I did not represent to you oppression or monopoly merely because I paid the money and you received it.  I took you into my confidence in many ways, and you made me feel I was your friend as well as your employer.  We enjoyed cosy chats, and yet you no more desired or wished to be present at my social functions than you desired me to enter into all your merrymakings and pleasures.  You were, in fact, one of the most agreeable and sensible women I have ever known in any station in life.  And now you write me that you are engaged to be married, and ask me to give you counsel in a very serious matter.

Together with your other excellent qualities, you have possessed economy and prudence.

At the age of twenty-five you have a tidy bank-account, the savings of eleven years.  This money is increasing, year by year, and drawing a small interest.

Now comes your lover, a hard-working and sober young man, so you say, but earning only a small salary as a clerk.

He has met with some reverses, and is temporarily embarrassed.  He wants you to lend him a few hundred dollars, and he will pay you the same interest you are now receiving, but you fear it would be unwomanly on your part to take this interest money.  At the same time you feel a reluctance to break in upon your savings, which you had planned to use in helping establish a home.  You want to befriend your lover, and you want to be wise and careful, and so you write to me, your old-time adviser, for counsel.  I fear I may hurt your feelings in what I am about to say.