make him happy for life.

This chivalrous and graceful synonym for courtship in itself speaks
volumes for the serious nature of the risk which he runs. The truly
gallant assumption which underlies it, that an Englishman only "pays
attention" to a woman when he has a solid businesslike offer of marriage
to make her, not only puts a formidable weapon into the hands of the
match-maker, but also leaves her victim without a most effectual means
of protection. The national gallantry towards women upon which a
Frenchman so plumes himself may be, as your true Briton declares, a poor
sort of quality enough; a mere grimace and trick of the lips--not
genuine stuff from the heart; having much the same relation to true
chivalry that his _biere_ has to beer, or his _potage_ to soup. But at
any rate it has this advantage, that it enables him to pay any amount of
flowery compliments to a woman without risk of committing himself, or of
being misunderstood.

If an Englishman asks a young lady after her sore throat, or her invalid
grandmother, and throws into his voice that tone of eager interest or
tender sympathy which a polite Frenchman would assume as a matter of
course, he is at once suspected of matrimonial designs upon her. He is
obliged to be as formal and businesslike in his mode of address as the
lawyer's clerk who added at the end of a too ardent love-letter the
saving clause "without prejudice." We have heard of a young lady who
confided to her bosom friend that she that morning expected a proposal,
and, when closely pressed for her reasons, blushingly confessed that the
night before a gentleman had twice asked her whether she was fond of
poetry, and four times whether she would like to go into the
refreshment-room.

We do not mean to say that this tendency to look upon every "attention"
as a preliminary step to an offer is entirely, or even principally, due
to British want of gallantry. Our national theory of courtship and
marriage has probably much more to do with it. We say "theory"
advisedly, for our practice approaches every day nearer to that of the
Continental nations whose mercenary view of the holy estate of matrimony
we righteously abjure. Our system is, in fact, gradually becoming a
clumsy compromise between the _mariage de convenance_ and the _mariage
d'amour_, with most of the disadvantages, and very few of the
advantages, of either. Theoretically, English girls are allowed to marry
for love, and to choose whi