nd soul of a dozen societies, write admirable
letters, get half her male relatives into Government offices, and yet be
the laughing-stock of the neighborhood for the absurd way in which she
goes husband-hunting for her daughters. The very energy and ability
which fit her for other pursuits disqualify her for match-making. She is
too impatient and too fond of action to adopt the purely passive
expectant attitude, the masterly inactivity, which is here the great
secret of success. She is always feeling that something should be said
or done to help on the business, and prematurely scares the shy or
suspicious bird. Many a promising love-affair has been nipped in the bud
simply because the too eager mother has drawn public attention to it
before it was robust enough to face publicity, by throwing the two
lovers conspicuously together, or by some unguarded remark.

When one thinks of all that a man has to go through in the course of a
love-affair--especially in a small society where everybody knows
everybody--of all the chaffing and grinning, and significant interchange
of glances when he picks up the daughter's fan, or hands the mother to
her carriage, or laughs convulsively at the old jokes of the father, one
is almost inclined to wonder how a Briton, of the average British
stiffness and shyness, ever gets married at all. The explanation
probably is, that he falls in love before he exactly knows what he is
about, and, once in love, is of course gloriously blind and deaf to all
obstacles between him and the adored one. But to subject a man to this
trying ordeal, as the too eager match-maker does, before he is
sufficiently in love to be proof against it, is like sending him into a
snow-storm without a great-coat.

The romantic match-maker is, in her way, as mischievous as the coarse or
the clumsy one. She is usually a good sort of woman, but with decidedly
more heart than head. She gets her notions of political economy from Mr.
Dickens' novels, and holds that, whenever two nice young people of
opposite sexes like each other, it is their business then and there to
marry. If Providence cannot always, like Mr. Dickens, provide a rich
aunt or uncle, it at least never sends mouths without hands to feed
them. Let every good citizen help the young people to marry as fast as
they can, and let there be lots of chubby cheeks and lots of Sunday
plum-pudding to fill them. There is no arguing with a woman of this
kind, and she is perhap