“I have got afraid of a lovely necklace that _my friend_ gave me,” said one of them. “I’ve wished a hundred times he hadn’t given it; but what in the world can I do with it?” “Send it back to him,” I said; “tell him you know more now than you did when you accepted it, and that you can not keep it.” “But that would make him furious. I—I—dare not make him angry.” “Then if he is so dangerous, you certainly dare not have him for a friend. If he is worthy of your friendship, he will understand and respect you all the more for this course. If he is not worthy of your friendship, the sooner you find it out, the better.” “O—but—,” and the poor girl burst into bitter weeping. Then after a few moments, with a sudden firm resolution expressed in her face, she dried her eyes, looked up at me, clasped my hands as if to hold herself by them, and said, “I’ll do it,—I’ll do it right off,—and if he wants to make it hard for me, he may. _I’ve kept honest_,—God knows I have,—and he knows it, though _he_ hasn’t helped me, as he said he would.” “He promised to help you?” I asked. “Yes, he did; he said I could trust _him_; that he’d never let a girl be compromised in his company in the world; but if I had done, and gone, as he insisted, lest if I didn’t he would have been provoked, I should have been talked about long ago. I thank you so much. I’ll get rid of it. He may have his old necklace, and keep it to give to his wife.” “That is right,” I said. “She is the only one who can wear or own it with safety.” The young man with a good heart, who is well taught in that which is best in good form, will never offer to any lady outside his own immediate family circle any gift but flowers; and those in the most delicate unobtrusive manner, such as will leave her, in receiving them, absolutely free to pass them on to some hospital patient if she chooses. To make her feel, by even a look, that she is under any obligation to wear a flower because he sends it, is to rob it of its fragrance and beauty, and make it fit only for the dust heap. Because of the possibilities which I have suggested, and many others to which they lead, good form requires that a young lady shall make it practically impossible for any man not intimately related to her to spend any money, or force any gifts, upon her. IX. I should not do my whole duty if I did not make some reference to the “holy kiss,” nor yet contribute what I can to enlighten the mothers who honor me by reading my book concerning the universal but almost unspeakable questions that are always coming into the minds of young people about this sacred form of salute. _You_ may know as much about these questions as I do, perhaps more; but there is many a mother who never dreamed that they could infest any brain but her own, and she never dared speak of such a thing. One girl came to me, her face suffused with blushes, but with a determined expression about her mouth, and said:—