Produced by Meredith Bach, Katherine Ward, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Print project.) [Illustration: Mary Wood-Allen, M. D.] TEACHING TRUTH SERIES ALMOST A WOMAN By Mary Wood-Allen, M. D. Author of "Teaching Truth"; "Almost a Man"; "Child-Confidence Rewarded;" "Caring for the Baby"; "The Man Wonderful"; "Ideal Married Life;" Etc. "Standing with reluctant feet Where the brook and river meet, Womanhood and childhood fleet! * * * * * Like the swell of some sweet tune Morning rises into noon, May glides onward into June." --Longfellow. "Earth's noblest thing, a woman perfected." --James Russell Lowell. PUBLISHED BY THE ARTHUR H. CRIST CO. Cooperstown, N. Y. 1911 Copyrighted by CRIST, SCOTT & PARSHALL 1907 All Rights Reserved. Entered at Stationer's Hall. CONTENTS. Prelude. 5 Chapter I. 9 Chapter II. 29 Chapter III. 38 Chapter IV. 69 PRELUDE. Mr. Wayne, glancing out of the window, saw some one passing down the front steps. Suddenly a look of recognition came into his face, and he turned to his wife with the exclamation, "I declare, Mary, our daughter Helen is almost a woman, isn't she?" "Yes," replied Mrs. Wayne, coming to his side and watching the slender figure going down the street. Her face bore a look of motherly pride, but she sighed, as she said, "Yes, Time and Death are equally inexorable; they both take our babies from us." "But not after the same fashion," replied Mr. Wayne. "Death takes them from our sight, where we cannot witness their growth and development, cannot know into what beauty they have blossomed." "Still," said Mrs. Wayne, "we do not recognize the changes Time makes until they are accomplished. So gradually does the blossom unfold that there is no day to which we can point as the day on which the bud became the full blown flower. On what day did Helen cease to be a baby and become a child? On what day will she cease to be a child and become a woman?" "We will know when the actual physical change takes place, but even after that I trust there will remain to us something of our little girl. I do not like to think of her approaching the sentimental age. How old is she?" "Thirteen." "Well, we need have no present fear of a sudden development of sentimentality."