It presents its
splendid, shining surface to the great sea but offers it no opportunity
for entrance.
One cannot help wishing with all his soul that we may have more and more
girls who are like that bit of solid granite, strongly resisting those
things that seek a tiny crevice by which to enter. For we have so many
who through some weak spot have let the tide of evil in and slowly it
has done its work until now the once strong and fine ideals lie broken
and beaten by the waves.
The strong girls of high ideals are with us and it is a comfort and a
joy to look into their young faces so full of promise and of courage.
We find them among the very rich and among the very poor as well as
among the girls who live in comfort with neither riches nor poverty to
make things exceedingly hard.
Irene is one of the girls who amidst poverty and sin has been able to
keep her ideals high. Her home is poor because her father, a mechanic,
who _can_ earn good wages is a hard drinker. Her mother, an honest,
clean, hard working woman, is nervous and fretful, worn out by the hard
things she has had to meet. It is a quarrelsome household and when the
father comes home intoxicated the law is obliged often to interfere. One
of the boys was expelled from school because his language is so
dreadful.
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