Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1883-05-18
WOMAN GOSSIP.
TIE Divinity That Doth Hedge an
Engaged Girl.
An English Woman on the Reputation
Of Her American Sisters
for Beauty and
SmartneSS.

EbedScu yOuuS ldlteS says the new
York JOHRdD are the prescribed wall
flowers of society. The vast majority
of them are pretty or they would not
be engaged, but how many of them
wear out their beauty in the vain hope
that engagement will mean marriage,
and that marriage will mean happiness.
Every girl who goes to balls and par
ties, to the opera and race meetings, to
Saratoga, or on one of the fashionable
steamers to Europe, can tell you that
should one Ofthesel doomed ones attract
the attention of the other sex sufficient
ly to provoke an inquiry as to her name
and station, it is enough to kill all iu-
terest in her to answer: That's Miss
So and-sO. She's engaged AS for the
engaged one, if she be u faithful sweet
heart, she is bound to consider herself
a. somebody labeled and ticketed, and
aid by for future use. Knowing the
irrational jealousy of man, she devotes
all her thoughts to appearing above the
suspicion OF tiirtatiOn-Or even above
the suspicion of taking the remOteSt in
terest in any male human being other
than he who has laid first and
Second Mortgage on Her,
and may he flOurishing free foot and
a fellow to it at the very moment she is
pinlng in the metaphOrical but tangible
weed of widOwbood. If she be, on the
other hand, what is termed ''lively"
q irl QnI NOT nnnarltan1 UNIV a
young lady who is engaged should make
sort of social mummy of herself, and
mixes innocently, but jeyously, in the
ordinary pleasures of girls of her age,
she is open to the basest misconstruc-
ton of her own seX-and will surely
incur it. There is not society girl
who reads these lines who can not call
to mind an instance in her own circle
of acquaintance where the conduct OF
a fellow female of hercOterie innocent
enough in itself-haS not been stigma
tiZCd by persons of her own age and
sex as Outrageous" simply because
she had the misfortune to be engaged"
Even wife is more free from es-
piOnage than an engaged girl. The
wife, at all events, has the fact to fall
back upon that She has husband. He
is supposed TO be, and in the vast ma
jOrity of cases is, the best judge Of what
his wife ought to DO and say, and where
she ought to go, and with whom,
whether he is along or not. Any per-
son, therefore who runs the risk of Of
Tending the wife, makes certainty of
offending the husband, and it is this
fact which makes the society and the
conversation and even the
Presence of Young Married Women
so delightful in American social life.
With the engaged girl, who is tied up
equally as tight dOmestically, and inf
nitely more so socially, the case Is very
different. The mere fact that she Is en-
gagged brings down on her an arrow
from every female belt. She is, and
she knows she is, the target for the very
sharpest weapons of female archery.
If wounded, she has no husband to fall
back upon; and her instinct teaches
her that the arrow which has pierced
her own breast would dOubly rankle in
the breast of her lover if she were to
call upon him to pull it out. Her only
safety is in the belief that il is not there.
lie, in the meantime, secure of the
prize which he has set aside pretty
much Us he sets aside box Of collars
to utilize when in his judgment the pro-
er time has come-iS pretty much OF a
privileged character in social life. Fifth
avenue and Murray hill can furnish
forth any day of the week hundred
such. There is no restraint placed upon
him in society. He is just as welcome
to balls and parties, and to lead the ger
man, while he is merely engaged, as he
would be if he had just left the paternal
nest. Far sighted mothers, who know
from experience that six out Of ten en-
gagements never come to anything, do
not frown upon their daughters, who,
not being themselves engaged, take a
delighted pleasure in showing them
selves of at their best advantage before
him, pursuit in which they are great
~ aOetted 10y the knowledge or report
that some other woman has had he
impudence to get lien upon him.
Lady Wilde on American women.
The first question propounded to a
traveller on returning from a transat-
lantic tour, says Lady Wilde in London
queen, is usually, What is your Opin-
ion of American woman? ," for, in truth,
the American women is by far the most