She has come with all her Russian habits
and ideas accented by her mother's American indifference to public
opinion. The girl is young, lovely, and wholly dependent upon herself
for a livelihood. I invited her to be my guest for two months, before
establishing herself in her business, with the hope of helping her to
adapt herself somewhat to American ideas and customs.
I could never hope for such a result, had I antagonized her the first
day under my roof by an austere attitude toward a habit which I knew she
had been reared to think proper.
I do not like to see a woman smoke, and I regret as much as you do the
increasing prevalence of the vice in America.
Like almost every schoolgirl, I had my day of thinking a surreptitious,
cigarette was wonderfully cunning.
That day passed, like the measles and the whooping-cough, and left me
immune. I have never seen a woman so beautiful and alluring that she was
not less charming when she put a cigarette to her lips. I am confident
the habit vitiates the blood, injures the digestion, and renders the
breath offensive.
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