And of all things do not expect a girl who has lived in the glare of red lights, and listened to the blare of bands, and worn the ofttimes becoming garb of folly, and stimulated her spirits with intoxicants—­do not expect her, I say, to suddenly be contented with quiet and solitude, and drudgery, and cheap, unlovely garments, and goodness.  Give her something to entertain her and to occupy her mind, give her something to live for and hope for and to be pleased over, besides the mere fact of reformation.  The opium victim, you must remember, can not at once partake of wholesome food and be well and happy in the thought that he has given up his drug.  Neither can the folly victim.  The standards of happiness and contentment which the moral woman has always found satisfactory, she too often considers sufficient for the sister who has wandered from the path.  But they are standards which, once lost, must be gained step by step, painfully and slowly.  They are not reached by a bound.  As much as possible keep your reformed sister’s mind from dwelling on the past, or from talking of her mistakes and sins.  Blot them from her memory by new and interesting plans and occupations.  The way to live a new life is to live it.

And our thoughts and conversation are important parts of living.  Instead of praying aloud to God to forgive her sins, show the God spirit in yourself by forgiving and forgetting and helping her to forget.

And now a word about yourself.

You are twenty-four, lovely, sympathetic, fond of children and animals, wholesome and normal in your habits, without crankiness, and popular with both sexes.  While there are many wives and widows possessed of these qualities, there seems to be some handicap to the spinster in the race of life who undertakes to arrive at middle age with all the womanly attributes.  Almost invariably she drops some of them by the wayside.  She becomes overorderly and fussy—­so that association with her for any length of time is insupportable—­or careless and indifferent.  Or she may grow inordinately devoted to animal pets, and bitter and critical toward children and married people.

She may develop mannish traits, and dress and appear more like a man than a feminine woman.

She may ride a hobby, to the discomfort of all other equestrians or pedestrians on the earth’s highway.  She may grow so argumentative and positive that she is intolerant and intolerable.  And whichever of these peculiarities are hers, she is quite sure to be wholly unconscious of it, while she is quick to see that of another.  Now watch yourself, my dear Sybyl, as you walk alone toward middle life; do not allow yourself to grow queer or impossible.  It was God’s intent that every plant should blossom and bear fruit, and that every human being should mate and produce offspring.  The plant that fails in any of its functions is usually blighted in some way, and the woman who fails of life’s full experiences seems to show some repellent peculiarity.  But she need not, once she sets a watch upon herself; she has a conscious soul and mind, and can control such tendencies if she will.