In Paris, the highest praise for a marriageable girl is to say,
'She has great sweetness of character and the disposition of a
lamb.' Nothing produces more impression on fools who are looking out
for wives. I think I see the interesting couple, two years after,
breakfasting together on a dull day, with three tall lackeys waiting
upon them!"

And he adds, still speaking in the interest of men:--

"Most men have a period in their career when they might do something
great, a period when nothing seems impossible. The ignorance of
women spoils for the human race this magnificent opportunity: and
love, at the utmost, in these days, only inspires a young man to
learn to ride well, or to make a judicious selection of a
tailor."[1]

Society, however, discovers by degrees that there are conveniences in every
woman's knowing the four rules of arithmetic for herself. Two and two come
to the same amount on a butcher's bill, whether the order be given by a man
or a woman; and it is the same in all affairs or investments, financial or
moral. We shall one day learn that with laws, customs, and public affairs
it is the same. Once get it rooted in a woman's mind, that for her, two and
two make three only, and sooner or later the accounts of the whole human
race fail to balance.

[Footnote 1: _De L'Amour_, par de Stendhal (Henri Beyle). Paris, 1868
[written in 1822], pp. 182, 198.]

A MODEL HOUSEHOLD

There is an African bird called the hornbill, whose habits are in some
respects a model. The female builds her nest in a hollow tree, lays her
eggs, and broods on them. So far, so good. Then the male feels that he must
also contribute some service; so he walls up the hole closely, giving only
room for the point of the female's bill to protrude. Until the eggs are
hatched, she is thenceforth confined to her nest, and is in the mean time
fed assiduously by her mate, who devotes himself entirely to this object.
Dr. Livingstone has seen these nests in Africa, Layard and others in Asia,
and Wallace in Sumatra.

Personally I have never seen a hornbill's nest. The nearest approach I ever
made to it was when in Fayal I used to pass near a gloomy mansion, of which
the front windows were walled up, and only one high window was visible in
the rear, beyond the reach of eyes from any neighboring house. In this
cheerful abode, I was assured, a Portuguese lady had been for many years
confined by h