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Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3449, 14 February 1912, Page 8

; Nearly every girl in her heart of ?Vr hearts -wants to marry well; not to marI ry with just enough to live on, and with no hope of an increase, but to h start house with the prospect of greater comfort in the future. Very often one sees a girl not at all as good-looking as oneself —with no features to speak of, and who maKes no attempt to treat herself to the latest thing in hats or frocks, carrying off a man with a good income, and, what is better, a good character and a xcmdly nature, from under the noses of dangerous rivals. What is her secret? The heads of large offices declare that it is their best workers who are snapped up first, and if this means anything, it means that the girl who is best at her business is also most attractive. The girl who comes into the city into a business house with the sole intention of hiding her time until she gets off, lacks something which appeals to the >• man who- is improving his position and

who keens before him a mental vision

of the ideal home. She attracts the young man fond of dress and theatres without much ballast, and with no care for the future. Her fate, should she marry him, very often consists in being the wife of a poor man with pretensions, hue no power of getting on; and innumerable women of this kind may lie seen in our suburbs, faded-looking rather untidy, and generally badly dressed. In their -haste to settle down they took the first- young fellow that came along, and. regardless of Iris possible future earning power, married him. They themselves are the greatest sufferers when they act like this, for the man can always escape from the poor a - d uncomfortable home for a few hours at least to some billiard saloon or place of entertainment, while the wife who was the theatre girl of a year or two before has to bide her time at home, trying to amuse herself by making old clothes look like new "or soothing the inevitable baby. The wise girl who goes into the city or into che business house will not be in too great a hurry to marry. If there is no one anxious to “sit up and take notice” when she is about except giddy giggling youngsters, she will concentrate on her work and try to make herself so efficient that she cannot be done without. The proudest moment in the enterprising girl’s life is when her employer tells her that she is uidispensable. "When a girl with good intelligence has to earn her own living, it is always wise of her to make up her mind that she may not marry at all, and to realise chat it might happen that she may have to earn for the rest of her natural life. If site contemplates this likelihood she will endeavor to better her position and to bring'her earning power up to its highest point. This is the type of girl who, because she is thorough and wastes no time in flirting during office hours, wins the regard of the men who matter. She is not- “out” to catch men; she is not the butterfly type; she is one of the workers, the people that matter : and the man “who matters” realises

her kinship to him* makes her his pal. Friendships which may or may not end in marriage begin founded on mutual liking—a kind of friendship which the young girl and young man, whom the “flash” attracts, could never understand.,,

It if- che girl who is interested in her work when she is doing it, who does not allow her attention to stray, who does not live with her eyes on the clock, who is prepared to do something that may not be her work, bin; which is there waiting to be done, that gets on. And the girl who is in the city to get on attracts to herself the right kind of man. He sees in her someone who will sympathise with him when things go wrong. He is the man who will have the big house in the future, and the power to share the good things that come as the reward of work guided by a first-class brain. The modern man who wants to make a success of his life is shrewd enough to draft mentally his ideal wife. He may flirt- and laugh and pay minor attentions to the girl who shows that such things are her object in life. Buthe rarely, save in moments of mental aberration, marries her. He is looking for his ideal, and when he finds the “thorough” girl, the girl who is conscientious and able at her work, he realises that these qualities are the inward ones. He knows that she will bring the same thoroughness to hear on her home, and that she will he as true to him and as faithful to his interests as she is to those of her employer, and he knows that these are the qualities he wants in the woman who will carry the keys of his house. His eyes may wander on occasions towards the flirty girl, but his heart seldom does.