The Bismarck Tribune

I was delighted to get your last letter, even though I have been slow about answering it.
You see, I have been having company. Cousins Grace and Mabel have been here since last Friday, and I have been very busy entertaining them. As you know, this is rather difficult.
Whenever I am with them very long, I always am glad that you are as you are, even if you worry me to death at times. For you may find yourself some day, and if you don't you at least will have made an effort to do so.
Both Grace and Mabel are over 40 now, and neither has ever had any great happiness or achieved anything that required any effort. They did not marry, though they had excellent opportunities in their youth; they never wanted to work, nor never seemed to have any motivation in their lives.
They belong to the generation that did not work unless it had to. Their parents would have considered it a reflection upon their standing, had their daughters wanted to work.
I remember they always were held up to the rest of the family as such ideal girls--they always did just what their parents told them to. But today they are tragic women.
Their lives are absolutely empty, in spite of good incomes, a comfortable home, and no pressing worries. They seem to me to have missed everything important in life, and not to know what they missed.
Now that their parents are dead they live in that big house in Centerville, and were quite shocked when I suggested that they move into a new, modern apartment. They would consider that sacrilegious, even though they have great trouble keeping help, and that old place is inconvenient and hard to keep up.
Grace would like to adopt a child but Mabel thinks that would be more than they could tackle between them. So they just continue to live on, in the least eventful fashion, making as much effort over buying a new coat or a new range as the average woman would to bringing up a family.
I think in the future there will be fewer such tragic figures among middle-aged women, because the young people today have more curiosity and courage, and more of a sense of the importance of achievement.
They sent their love to you, and were much interested in your life in the city. And encouragement from you doubtless would bring them for a visit. I think it would be kind of you to invite them to your home some day. A little life would do them good.
I hope you continue to have a happy summer.
MOM.
NEXT: "That's out," says Marye.
(Copyright, 1928, NEA Service, Inc.)