to her mother with
the question: "Mamma, do you think I shall ever have a chance to get
married?"

And the mother answered: "Surely you will, my child; the woods are
full of offers of marriage--no woman can avoid them."

And ere many years had passed the maiden had learned that the wisdom
of her mother's prophecy was fully vindicated.

Every one knows that a woman needs neither beauty, talent, nor money
to win the deepest and sincerest love that man is capable of giving.

Single life is, with rare exceptions, a matter of choice and not of
necessity; and while it is true that a happy married life is the
happiest position for either man or woman, there are many things which
are infinitely worse than being an old maid, and chiefest among these
is marrying the wrong man!

The modern woman looks her future squarely in the face and decides
according to her best light whether her happiness depends upon
spinsterhood or matrimony. This decision is of course influenced very
largely by the quality of her chances in either direction, but if the
one whom she fully believes to be the right man comes along, he is
likely to be able to overcome strong objections to the married state.
If love comes to her from the right source, she takes it gladly;
otherwise she bravely goes her way alone, often showing the world that
some of the most mother-hearted women are not really mothers. Think of
the magnificent solitude of such women as Florence Nightingale and our
own splendid Frances Willard! Who shall say that these, and thousands
of others of earth's grandest souls, were not better for their
single-heartedness in the service of humanity?

A writer in a leading journal recently said: "The fact that a woman
remains single is a tribute to her perception. She gains an added
dignity from being hard to suit."

This, from the pen of a man, is somewhat of a revelation, in the light
of various masculine criticisms concerning superfluous women. No woman
is superfluous. God made her, and put her into this world to help her
fellow-beings. There is a little niche somewhere which she, and she
alone, can fill. She finds her own completeness in rounding out the
lives of others.

It has been said that the average man may be piloted through life by
one woman, but it must be admitted that several of him need somewhere
near a dozen of the fair sex to wait upon him at the same time. His
wife and mother are kept "hustling," while his "sisters and his au