The Telephone.—­A girl should be chary of calling up her young men acquaintances by telephone.  If forced to do so, she should make her communication as brief as possible.  It is annoying to a young man to be called from his business to answer social or “nonsense” calls—­the latter when some idle, ennuied or “smitten” girl takes a notion she would like to chatter to somebody awhile.  It exasperates an employer to have his men called from their duties to answer such calls, and fellow employees are likely to “guy” the man about his “mash.”  The “note habit” is just about as bad, though not quite as annoying, as the telephone habit, because a man can carry such missives in his pocket unopened.

A wise girl will not give her photograph to any young man until she is engaged to him.  What nice girl would care to see her picture neighbored by ballet dancers and footlight favorites in a young man’s rooms!  She will be equally careful about corresponding with men, writing to but a few intimate and long-known friends, making her letters bright and gay, but carefully avoiding any warmer expressions of regard than those warranted by the friendship.  Many a girl has bitterly regretted the affectionate missives sent to some young man who made “werry fierce love” to her for a time, and whose regard afterward cooled.  When the man she truly loves comes along, she would give her most precious jewel to get those letters into her hands again.  It is a great deal safer not to write them.

A young woman, receiving back her letters at the close of a mistaken engagement, once said: 

“I sat down on the floor and read them over, and I tell you I was proud of myself.  There wasn’t one I wouldn’t have been willing to have my father read—­and you know what I think of my father!”

[Manners and social customs 721]

The debutante.

A large number of young girls enter society without formal introductions.  After leaving school, they assume their social responsibilities with no formality.  It is seldom that a girl enters the social world under eighteen, or over twenty-two.  The early appearance implies no college career; the later, that, she has spent several years at college or finishing school.

Increasingly, however, it is becoming the custom to introduce the young aspirant for social recognition at some function given in her honor.  This may be a ball, a reception, a “coming-out party,” a dinner, a tea, at which the debutante is introduced to the older members of the circle in which she will move.  Whereas her associates heretofore have been young folk of her own age, she now meets the people of all ages who constitute what we call society.  Her circle of acquaintances will be much enlarged, and her breeding will be judged by the manner in which she accepts her new obligations.