These children have seen older young people, perhaps mother and the minister, stand and talk and laugh in the same way. Some may ask, “Well, why not?” Because it is not _good form_, because a bad social savor attaches to it, because, no matter who does it, unless they are very aged, or are, like Cæsar’s wife, absolutely above suspicion (and who can venture to assume such a thing for himself), they will lose in dignity, suffer in reputation, become the butt of some sly joke from the class of people who need the help that can only be given by men and women who do not “allow their good to be evil spoken of.” If children and young people form the habit of stopping to talk at the gate, they will do it as men and women; and by doing it, draw the evil eye, and invite gossip. Teach your boy and girl that good form requires that when they arrive at the gate, if they wish to continue the conversation, both should go on into the house together; or that, after he has opened the gate and closed it after her, she should promptly say “Good morning,” or “Good evening,” and he should as promptly lift his hat, and walk away. If they enter the house together, good form requires that he, if he be young or old, should receive a family greeting, and that the members of the family shall be free to come to the parlor or sitting-room to which he has been taken, to remain and share in the conversation if they wish, until the call is ended. Two young people should never suppose that they must sit in a parlor with closed doors; that father, mother, and every one else must be kept out of the way because Nellie’s friend (never call him a beau) has come to spend the evening. They should never consider it possible to extend that evening into and past the large hours of the night. This is one of Satan’s most fruitful wrecking devices, of which the young people will never think, themselves, unless their training has tended to push them off away from their natural social guides, and keep bad social models before them. When the boy, or young man, comes to spend an evening because you have a daughter, give him just as much of yourself as possible; make yourself so indispensable to the young people that they will naturally come to you wherever you prefer to sit, rather than try to entertain each other without you. This is not an unheard of thing, although one will sometimes hear Christian people answer to this teaching as if it were very extreme indeed. “How then will a young man be able to say anything special to the girl?” To which it may be answered that if he is not able to find some way which is perfectly consistent with every principle of decorum, he is not worth listening to; and if that is true of him, it will be because he did not have his share of the right sort of home life and training.