Many,
many times he would take me with him when he made his professional
visits to his patients, leaving me in the buggy to wait at each
house--'to be his hitching post'--he used to say. And on those long
rides, sometimes out into the country, he talked to me as I suppose not
many fathers talk to their daughters. And because he was my father and a
physician, and because we were so much alone in our companionship, I
believed him the wisest and best man in all the world, and felt that
nothing he said or did could be wrong. And so, you see, dear, my ideal
man, the man to whom I could give myself, came to be the kind of a man
that my father placed in the highest rank among men--a man like you,
Stan. And almost the last talk we had before he died father said to
me--I remember his very words--'My daughter, it will not be long now
until men will seek you, until someone will ask you to share his life.
Keep your ideal man safe in your heart of hearts, daughter, and remember
that no matter what a suitor may have to offer of wealth or social rank,
if he is not your ideal--if you cannot respect and admire him for his
character and manhood alone--say no; say no, child, at any cost.
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