Do you say she cannot govern the thoughts of men? I reply, she can to a great extent. By a dress that exposes her person to public gaze, or even more seductively hides it under a film of suggestive lace, she has given a direction to the thoughts of those who look at her. She has declared that their eyes may touch her, that their thoughts may be occupied with an inventory of her physical charms. She has openly announced that she is willing to be appraised by eyes of men as a beautiful animal. What wonder if their thoughts go further than her public declaration, and that they may freely surmise the charms that still remain hidden? When a girl, by putting herself into graceful attitudes in tempting nearness to a young man, casts coquettish glances, she has done that which will give a turn to the thought which may prove provocative of deeds. "I am afraid of that girl," said a young man who desired to live purely. "May be she does not mean it, but her poses and glances make it almost impossible for me to keep my hands off of her. I am obliged to leave her for fear that I shall kiss her when she looks so mischievously alluring." The girl, perhaps, would have been flattered by the kiss and indignant at further liberties, yet would have felt no compunctions had her victim been inflamed by a passion that he lacked the power to control, prompting him to seek some other girl to be his prey. You think men should have self-control. So they should. We will not lessen the blame of the young man, but the girl who puts the temptation in his way, even if she did not herself yield to it, is not guiltless. The conduct of a pure woman should be the safeguard and not the destruction of a man, and she can be his protector, even as he is hers. I heard an eminent woman say that woman was man's moral protector, and man woman's physical protector, and I said that is only half true. Man is also woman's moral protector, and woman is also man's physical protector. She is acknowledged to be his physical tempter. If she knows her power she can, by her wise, modest, womanly demeanor, make it impossible for him to feel an impure impulse in her presence. Ruskin says: "You cannot think that the buckling on of the knight's armor by his lady's hand was a mere caprice of romantic fashion. It is the type of an eternal truth--that the soul's armor is never well set to the heart unless a woman's hand has braced it; and it is only when she braces it loosely that the honor of manhood fails. Know you not those lovely lines--I would they were learned by all youthful ladies of England-- "'Ah wasteful woman! she who may On her sweet self set her own price, Knowing he cannot choose but pay-- How has she cheapen'd Paradise! How given for nought her priceless gift, How spoiled the bread and spill'd the wine, Which, spent with due, respective thrift, Had made brutes men, and men divine!'" CHAPTER XXI. FRIENDSHIP BETWEEN BOYS AND GIRLS.