"I should say so! I've heard Paul say, 'Old Chap,' or seen Winfield give Paul a slap on the shoulder; but they are never silly and they've been friends for years. But Lucy and Nellie have only been so 'thick' for a few weeks, and they'll fall out pretty soon. Lucy is always having such lover-like friends and then quarreling with them. Now, she and Nellie are going to have a mock wedding next week. They call themselves husband and wife even now,--isn't that silly?" "It is worse than silly,--I call it wrong," replied Mrs. Wayne. "Such morbid friendships are dangerous, both to health and morals." "To the health, mother? I don't see how that can be." "No, I doubt if you can, but I hope that you will believe me when I tell you they are dangerous. When girls are so demonstrative, when they claim to stand to each other as man and woman, you may feel assured that the relation is unnatural and that the drain upon the nervous system is very great. I once knew a girl who actually destroyed the health of a number of girls in a school by such demonstrative friendships. She always had one devoted friend who could not live without her. I have known a girl to cry day after day and actually go home sick, because her friendship with this girl was threatened. And it is said that another girl took her own life from jealousy of this one. "Friendship is a grand thing when it is true and worthy, but a morbid, unnatural sentimentality does not deserve the name of friendship and I should be very sorry to see you fall into the toils of a morbid, unnatural relation with another girl. Yet I should be pleased to see you having a sincere, womanly, noble affection for another girl, one which would not waste itself in sentimentality but be able to rise to heights of grand renunciation." "I think I understand you, mother, and I promise you I will try to hold the highest ideals of friendship." Such talks as these brought mother and daughter into such close companionship that Helen was not afraid to bring her mother the deepest problems of her young life. It was Saturday afternoon, and mother and daughter were sitting together sewing. The rain was pouring, so that there was little fear of visitors, and while Mrs. Wayne was discussing with herself how she could begin to talk to her daughter of her approaching womanhood, Helen suddenly said, "Mother, what is the matter with Clara Downs? She is going into consumption, they say, and I heard Sadie Barker say to Cora Lee that it was because Clara did not change into a woman. What did she mean? I thought we just grew into women. Isn't that the way?" "You didn't ask Sadie what she meant?" "O, no, the girls acted as if they didn't want me to hear, and then, I'd always rather you'd tell me things, for then I feel sure that I know them right."