“I am so sick at heart that I can hardly write this letter, but I must know your opinion, my dear Miss Shirley. I have been deeply in love for over a year, and now I am forced to believe that the object of my affections has forsaken me for another. Oh, what can I do to win him back! I shall certainly die if I have to live another week without him!
There is anguish in every word of this letter, and we are very sorry indeed for you, Imogen. There is no grief so poignant as that which a young girl feels when she awakes to the fact which you seem to have discovered. But bear in mind, my dear, that there are scores of lovely and lovable men on earth, and perhaps your cloud will yet have a silver lining. Some day you will meet a man whose love will be all your own, and you will be able to see that this first disappointment was all for the best. We would not advise you to try and get him back. If he does not come back of himself his love is not worth having.
“Will you please tell me if you think fifteen is too young to love? I am just that age, and I have just met a young man who is very attractive, and I know he is in love with me and wants me to marry him. People tell me that at my age I don’t know my own mind. I should hate to marry him thinking that I love him and then find myself mistaken.
A letter like this is a positive treat! A girl of fifteen who can reason so wisely will not be apt to make many errors. A great deal of the misery in the world has been created through thoughtless and hasty marriages. Women marry men at eighteen whom they despise at twenty-five, or choose husbands at twenty-five whom they have ceased to love or respect at thirty. Human nature is ever changeable, and it is one of the most difficult tasks in the world to discover two intellects that will be perfect mates for life. One may go ahead or lag behind, and because of this the result of marriages is uncertain. We would certainly advise you to wait until you are older. No girl of fifteen is sufficiently well developed mentally or physically to marry, and, furthermore, your education cannot be completed at your age.
“I have been married a year, and, oh, how I regret it! Just think, Miss Shirley, I was an only daughter. I earned ten dollars a week as cloak model down town, and having no board to pay, could use it all in pin money. Now ten dollars a week has to do for a whole family, my husband, myself and a six weeks’ old baby. I would give the world if I had never been married, and I write this letter as a warning to others. I do hope you will print it in your correspondence columns.