d a perfect man. If you find one without any
faults, incapable of mistakes, never having guessed wrongly, his
patience never having been perturbed, immaculate in speech, in temper,
in habits, do not marry him. Why? Because you would enact a swindle.
What would you do with a perfect man who are not perfect yourself? And
how dare you hitch your imperfection fast on such supernatural
excellence? What a companion you would make for an angel! In other
words, there are no perfect men. There never was but one perfect pair,
and they slipped down the banks of paradise together. We occasionally
find a man who says he never sins. _We know he lies_ when he says it.
We have had financial dealings with two or three perfect men, and they
cheated us wofully. Do not, therefore, look for an immaculate husband,
for you will not find him.

PLENTY OF GOOD HUSBANDS.

But do not become cynical on this subject. Society has a great
multitude of grand men who know how to make home happy. When they come
to be husbands they evince a nobility of nature and a self-sacrificing
spirit that surprise even the wife. These are the men who cheerfully
sit in dark and dirty business offices, ten feet by twelve, in summer
time hard at work while the wives and daughters are off at Saratoga,
Mount Desert, or the White Sulphur. These are the men who, never
having had much education themselves, have their sons at Yale, and
Harvard, and Virginia University. These are the men who work
themselves to death by fifty years of age, and go out to Greenwood
leaving large estate and generous life-insurance provision for their
families.

There are husbands and fathers here by the hundreds who would die for
their households. If outlawry should ever become dominant in our
cities they would stand in their doorway, and with their own arm would
cleave down, one by one, fifty invaders face to face, foot to foot,
and every stroke a demolition. This is what makes an army in defence
in a country fight more desperately than an army of conquest. It is
not so much the abstract sentiment of a flag as it is wife, and
children, and home that turns enthusiasm into a fury. The world has
such men by the million, and the homunculi that infest all our
communities must not hinder women from appreciating the glory of true
manhood.

FIDELITY IN ADVERSITY.

I was reading of a bridal reception. The young man had brought home
the choice of his heart in her elaborate and exquisite apparel.