The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-11-12
EVENING CHAT
Letters From a Successful Business
Woman to Her Niece. No. 8.
BY RUTH CAMERON.


Dear Niece Joan: I-have been won
dering for the past month just when
that letter would come.
So you happened to go down in the
| elevator together and got to talking,
and he said you had better come along
to lunch with him and finish the sub
| ject, and you made up a little fib about
having an errand to do I'D town, and
declined.
And now you are wondering If you
were silly and prudish.
No, little girl, you were just as wise
and fine and good-commonsen as
knew my little Joan would be when
that phase of a business woman's life
presented itself to her
1 suspect that st. Peter chuckled
| when he heard that fib. and made
haste to iot it down on the credit
side of the ledger right under your
| staying at home last summer so your
mother could take that trip.
Dear child, it isn't just from doing
| a thing like that once that harm
comes. It's from doing it the second
time and third and twentieth time.
| And the very best way 1 know to
make sure that you won't do a thing
the second and third and soon times
! is not to do it the first time.
The going to lunch once in itself
wouldn't necessarily be wrong at ALL
1t would be foolish, however, because
| 1T might give evil-minGed people a
| chance to suspect harsh things. But
! it would only be wrong if it be-
came link in a chain of intimacy
and mutual necessity for each others
company that bound you two together.
| Can't anyone who Is married have
any friends of the opposite sex, you
say? Yes, but not necessary friends.
The moment anyone of the opposite
| sex whom you cannot marry becomes
headed straight for a terrible Scylla
and Charybdis. with unhappiness on
one side and disgrace on the other.
OF course, you haven't the faintest
idea there would ever be a chain of
| necessity between you and this man.
1 haven't either I have too much
| faith in your common sense.
But kindly listen to this extract
from one of your letters
There is such an interesting man
in the department next to ours. He
does not have to dictate to me very
often but he is very fond of music
and reads the same books that / do
| and occasionally he comes in to talk
things over. He is really much super
| ior to any man ever met at a dance"
| And a=ain:
| 'sMr R., the man I spoke of
| before, brought me in the last Cen
| tury, as there. was very interesting
article he wanted me to read
My, dear, if you had told me that
this man was uncongenial and I'M
\ interesting / wouldn't have had any
| objections to you going to lunch with
| him.
! But these very tastes that attract
you to each other. are what should
| warn you to keep apart
Now maybe you think I'm foolish,
! niece, with all this talk about a chain
of necessity. but, Joan, I've been a
business woman fifteen years now, and
I've seen good many cases where
| that chain weighed heavily enough to
| drag some pretty strong men and
woman down into the mire of failure
| and disgrace.
Believe me dear, the best way to
| be sure you'll never chafe under such
| a chain is never to forge the first link.
AS ever,
/ Your fussy. but well meaning Old
Aunt.