The Other Girls   By: A. D. T. (Adeline Dutton Train) Whitney (1824-1906)

By

MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY

BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY The Riverside Press, Cambridge 1893

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

By Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney.

WRITINGS. New Edition, from new plates. The set, 17 vols. 16mo, $21.25. FAITH GARTNEY'S GIRLHOOD. 16mo, $1.25. HITHERTO: A Story of Yesterdays. 16mo, $1.25. PATIENCE STRONG'S OUTINGS. 16mo, $1.25. THE GAYWORTHYS. 16mo, $1.25. A SUMMER IN LESLIE GOLDTHWAITE'S LIFE. 16mo, $1.25. WE GIRLS: A Home Story. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.25. REAL FOLKS. 16mo, $1.25. THE OTHER GIRLS. 16mo, $1.25. SIGHTS AND INSIGHTS. 2 vols. 16mo, $2.50. ODD, OR EVEN? 16mo, $1.25. BONNYBOROUGH. 16mo, $1.25. BOYS AT CHEQUASSET. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.25. MOTHER GOOSE FOR GROWN FOLKS. Enlarged Edition. Illustrated by HOPPIN. 16mo, $1.25. HOMESPUN YARNS. Short Stories. 16mo, $1.25. ASCUTNEY STREET. A Neighborhood Story. 16mo, $1.25. A GOLDEN GOSSIP. Neighborhood Story Number Two. 16mo, $1.25. DAFFODILS. Poems. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.25. PANSIES. Poems. New Edition. 16mo, $1.25. HOLY TIDES. Seven Songs for the Church's Seasons. 16mo, illuminated paper, 75 cents. BIRD TALK. New Poems. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, $1.00. JUST HOW: A Key to the Cook Books. 16mo, $1.00.

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PREFACE.

"Wait until you are helped, my dear! Don't touch the pie until it is cut!"

The old Mother, Life, keeps saying that to us all.

As individuals, it is well for us to remember it; that we may not have things until we are helped; at any rate, until the full and proper time comes, for courageously and with right assurance helping ourselves.

Yet it is good for people , as people, to get a morsel a flavor in advance. It is well that they should be impatient for the King's supper, to which we shall all sit down, if we will, one day.

So I have not waited for everything to happen and become a usage, that I have told you of in this little story. I confess that there are good things in it which have not yet, literally, come to pass. I have picked something out of the pie beforehand.

I meant, therefore, to have laid all dates aside; especially as I found myself a little cramped by them, in re introducing among these "Other Girls" the girls whom we have before, and rather lately, known. Lest, possibly, in anything which they have here grown to, or experienced, or accomplished, the sharply exact reader should seem to detect the requirement of a longer interval than the almanacs could actually give, I meant to have asked that it should be remembered, that we story tellers write chiefly in the Potential Mood, and that tenses do not very essentially signify. It will all have had opportunity to be true in eighteen seventy five, if it have not had in eighteen seventy three. Well enough, indeed, if the prophecies be justified as speedily as the prochronisms will.

The Great Fire, you see, came in and dated it. I could not help that; neither could I leave the great fact out.

Not any more could I possibly tell what sort of April days we should have, when I found myself fixed to the very coming April and Easter, for the closing chapters of my tale. If persistent snow storms fling a falsehood in my face, it will be what I have not heretofore believed possible, a white one; and we can all think of balmy Aprils that have been, and that are yet to be.

With these appeals for trifling allowance, leaving the larger need to the obvious accounting for in a largeness of subject which no slight fiction can adequately handle, I give you leave to turn the page.