rests with them whether the opportunity or the
temptation gets the upper hand.

Positions in which girls are thrown into close contact with men expose
them to temptation of another sort. It is in its most acute form when
it brings a poor girl into more or less intimate association with a rich
man. Once, a very long time ago, a king married a beggar maid and they
lived happily ever after. People have not stopped writing and talking
about it yet, although it is many centuries since it happened. It is
true that once in a very great while a girl marries her father's
chauffeur or her brother's valet and finds later that she has acted
wisely; but these are rare exceptions to the general rule, for the
result usually is unhappiness. Such marriages are always the occasion
for big headlines in the paper, usually a double set of them, for, in
most instances, the divorce follows within a year or so.

It is a dangerous thing for a girl to receive attentions
indiscriminately from men, especially those who drift across her horizon
from the great world outside. It is dangerous (is it necessary to add
that it is incorrect?) for a manicurist to accept presents from the
millionaire whose hands she looks after. It is unwise for any girl to
accept expensive gifts from a man who is not her fiance.

There are exceptions to this rule, as indeed to every other. At
Christmas or at the time a ceremony or an anniversary employers
sometimes give their secretaries or another trusted employee a
beautiful gift, and it is within the bounds of propriety for the
employee to accept it. Often when he has been away from the office for
several weeks a man presents his secretary a gift to express his
gratitude for the capable way in which she has managed affairs in his
absence, and this gift the secretary is privileged to accept. Gifts are
seldom presented except where the association has been a long and highly
satisfactory one.

But the girl who goes to the theatre with a man about whom she knows
nothing except that he has the price of the tickets is running a serious
risk. She is violating one of the most rigid principles of etiquette and
she is skating perilously out beyond the line marked off by common
sense. Nearly every man can, and does, if he is the right sort, present
credentials before asking a girl if he may call or if he may escort her
to a place of amusement. There are instances in romantic stories and in
real life where a man and a maid hav