The age-herald., 1900-08-19
What Birmingham Men Think
 Upon the Subject SHE IS GREATLY IN EVIDENCE Does II Pay to be Engaged Furnishes an Interesting Topic for Summer Gossip in View of Numerous
 Approaching Weddings.
BY ANNIE KENDRICK WALKER.


 'Is it very nice to be engaged?' queried a young Birmingham beauty recently of a belle who is to be married this winter, and the latter, with an air that she might as- sume twenty years later, answered:
 'It is when the right sort of woman Is engaged to the right sort of man."
 But there are other times-one does not always know
 But one is never mistaken when the right man comes along, and he always knews when he has met the right woman, and then any engagements of the past seem very trifing events and are not to be re- called until one grows old enough to pose as having been belle and beauty in her youth," continued the engaged girl, whose bushes were making her look prettier than ever, as she was being drawn into con fession.
 'The woman," she went on to say, ''who boasts of her numerous engagements probably enjoys the conquests she has made. but if she is the type who delibe- rately engages herself to a man just for an indefinite time and then breaks her en- gagement to become engaged to another man, whom later on she discards, the real significance of an engagement is entirely lost upon her. If you were to ask this type of woman the same question you have me she would probably say that it was lawfully jolly or great fun to be engaged, while at that very time she would be tired of the little game she was playing with the last man on her string.
 But the woman who holds any affairs of the heart as sacred and who would no more think of engaging herself to a man without being true to all that the word tVp fhoD she would think of ming off with some other woman's hus- band, when this woman became engaged the man may be sure that there will be no danger of scandal, even should she later on develop into something of mar ried belle.
 Tt is this type to whom an engagement is of the purest and highest significance, and it Is the very happiest time in her life when she realizes the fact that the man to whom she is engaged is getting to be justa little selfish about her, and prefers not to find so many of the other men around II he calls unexpectedly.
 s'There are cases when a man shows too strongly his unwillingness for her to en- courage her old friends. and there is too frequently a warm discussion on the sub- feet But there are some men who assume a little air of ownership without making the woman feel any resentment at his in terference.
 But the etiquette of an engagement is easily settled when public announcement is made, and this is why l prefer an early announcement, although the announcement of my own engagement has not been for mally made After this is done there is apt to be less misunderstanding or the part of any one and If ones fiance should object to ones receiving the attentions of other men, the fact that the engagement was known would prevent any explana- tions or misunderstanding that might arise
 For when an engaged girl continues to receive the attentions of her old friends 1t is certainly a great compliment to her, and simply because she is engaged is no. req son that she should look bored when men other than her fiancee put themselves out to be kind to her"
 The young woman who was listening to this discussion, and who had provoked it. said rather frowningly that she would be miserable If she should be engaged and her fiancee would disapprove of her going out with her old friends at least occasion ally, and that she was not in favor of an- nouncing marriage engagements until d few weeks before the wedding.
 ''The engaged girl" she said, 'is then so busy with her trousseau that she does not have time to even see her fiancee. For my part, prefer the old-fashioned custom that was in vogue in our mothers and grand mothers day of the engagement being an- nouneed just short time before the we'd ding, and then, too, it was considered bad form for the bride to be seen on the streets after her engagement was publicly known