The Portland daily press., 1871-07-26
DAILY PRESS.
ND,
WEDNESDAY, JULY 20, 1871.

PORTLAND

wish you all knew Gyp. Gyp is young
girl who lives in little brown house lust
across the street. Whether Gyp is nick
name or not, l cannot tell; at any rate, it is
very appropriate. If you had seen her, as l
did, tonight, come flying across the street
and perch herself on the topmost step of our
veranda, her hair in most distracting confu-
sion, and her face all aglow with exercise, you
would agree with me that no other name
would suit her half so well. Gyp is just six
teen-a most beautiful age-the very "May
OF life." She is not pretty girl, not at all
st} llsh; and am obliged TO confess that last
week, when the circus passed in solemn pro-
cessloh through our street, Gyp sat on top
the fence and watched the show with the ut
most tranquility; so of course she is not lady
like or polished in her manners. don't he.
lieve she ever did her hair up fashionably in
her life. really doubt whether she ever bad
beau. Think of it! girl sixteen years old
who goes to concerts and lectures with her
father and mother! Nevertheless, wish you
all knew Gyp. She is the only genuine girl 1
have seen in long time. Now, according to
my ideas, there is nothing in all the world so
beautiful as a young girl, provided she be a
girl. 1t seems to me that nowadays We see
only babies, young ladies, and married wo-
men; the girls are fast becoming extinct. 1t
puzzles me to understand how they have the
heart to skip over this period of their lives, to
leap from the nursery into society. l know
several young girls in fashionable boarding
house near by, school girls all of them, and
every one of them should be at home under a
mothers eye. They are in their early teens;
but, bless you! you would never know it un-
less you looked at the school register. Do
they not walk, aud talk, and f1irt with gentle
menP Is not their hair braided, and frizzed,
and curled, and puffedp Are not their dresses
founced, and sashed, and trimmed and over
skirted? Is not their conversation already on
conquest and marriageP their gay dresses;
their dashing airs are fascinating; she feels
exceedingly young in comparison; but /, who
am ever so far along in the twenties, can look
six years ahead and see Gyp fresh, and un-
spotted by the world, when these others, in
vain, attempted to WOO back the girlish airs
and graces so eagerly thrown aside years ago;
The slender grace" of those days will be dead
forever. For this death, there is no resurrec-
ton. think it must be pleasant for wife
and mother TO have as companions her own
childhood, and girlhood, and maidenhood; to
have these three with her while she rears her
own daughters. But what a mother is she
who has no girlhood! The purest, most win
some friend of all is absent.
In America, girl enters society when she
is sixteen; in England, she is only girl at
that age. In America, she is married at
twenty; in England, she is just standing
"where the brook and river meet" In Amer
lea she begins TO fade at twenty-five; in Eng
land, she is then in the first flush of her
beauty. Who, comparing the average Ameri-
can matron with the average English matrOn,
can doubt as to which nation brings up her
daughters the best? My dear girl, so surely
as you sell your birthright for mess of pot
tage, the day will come when you will find no
place of repentance, though you seek it care
fully, with tears.-Hearth and Home.