ay be shy, she may be a stranger, she may not be much accustomed to
society life, she may feel herself out of place in the gay assemblage,
she may be unentertained or bored or annoyed, it matters not to him as
long as he is having a good time with the boys, or is encircled by the
ladies fair, who unanimously think him the most gallant of men,
unrivaled in his wit and wisdom and conversational powers, and who
secretly sigh if but their husbands were like him.

To such an extent is this wife-neglect carried on that a lady not long
ago made a wager that, in nine cases out of ten, she would distinguish
between married and unmarried couples. She won the wager. When asked
to explain her method of discrimination, she said: "When you see a
gentleman and a lady walking in silence side by side, it is a married
couple; when their conversation is continuous and animated, and
smile-and-laugh-provoking, they are single. When a gentleman sits next
to a lady in the theatre, and never keeps his opera glass away from the
boxes and galleries and stage, he is her husband; when his eyes rest
more on her than on the stage, it is her lover. When a lady, who sits
at the side of a gentleman, drops her glove, and she stoops to hunt it,
it is a married couple; if he stoops quickly to pick it up it is an
unmarried couple. When a lady plays, and a gentleman stands near her,
and does not turn for her the pages of the music book, it is her
husband; when you see his fingers in eager readiness to turn the leaf,
it is not her husband."

There is in every true woman a spark of divinity, which glows in her
heart, and blazes into a most luminous light when a husband's love and
respect and sympathy and appreciation and encouragement fan that spark
into activity. But woe to the home where cruel hands quench that
flame. The sun is the heater and illuminator of our whole solar
system. The vast supplies which it sends forth daily must be
compensated, or else it would soon expend itself, and our world would
go to ruin. Nature, therefore, hurls millions of meteors every second
into the sun's fiery furnace to keep up the supply of heat and light.
The wife is the sun of the household. Her womanly attributes give the
light and warmth and happiness of the home to all who cluster around
her. But a wife's love and self-sacrifice for her home are not
infinite. They soon exhaust themselves, where love is unreturned,
where a husband is a tyrant, where self-sa