n in one way, they may in
another. If you should be preserved in solitude, you will not be quite
safe abroad. Having but a very imperfect conception of the different
shades of character among the sex, you will be ready to suppose all are
excellent who appear fair and all good who appear gentle.

I have alluded to the dangers of too great intimacy. Nothing here
advanced is intended to make you a mere trifler, or to sink the dignity
of your own sex. Although you are to respect females because of their
sex, yet there are some who bestow upon them a species of attention
extremely injurious to themselves, and unpleasant and degrading to all
sensible ladies.

There is still another evil sometimes resulting from too great
intimacy. It is that you lead the other party to mistake your object.
This mistake is easily made. It is not necessary, to this end, that you
should make any professions of attachment, in word or deed. Looks, nay
even something less than this, though it may be difficult to define it,
may indicate that sort of preference for the society of a lady, that
has sometimes awakened an attachment in her which you never suspected
or intended. Or what is a far less evil, since it falls chiefly on
yourself, it may lead her and others to ridicule you for what they
suppose to be the result, on your part, of intention.

Let me caution you, then, if you would obey the golden rule of doing to
others as you would wish others should do to you, in the same
circumstances, and if you value, besides this, your own peace, to
beware of injuring those whom you highly esteem, by leading them by
words, looks, or actions, to that misapprehension of your meaning which
may be the means of planting thorns in their bosoms, if not in your
own.

There is another error to which I wish to call your attention, in this
place, although it might more properly be placed under the head,
_Seduction_. I allude to the error of too great familiarity with
others, after your heart is already pledged to a particular favorite.
Here, more, if possible, than in the former case, do you need to set a
guard over all your ways, words, and actions; and to resolve, in the
strength, and with the aid of Divine grace, that you will never deviate
from that rule of conduct toward others,--which Divine Goodness has
given, as the grand text to the book of human duty.

The general idea presented in the foregoing sections, of what a woman
ought to be, is sufficient to g