We educate
them to catch husbands. Every superadded accomplishment is put on with
the distinct understanding that its sole use is to make the goods more
marketable. We get up parties, we go to watering places, we buy
dresses, we refurnish our houses, to help our girls to a good match.
And then we teach them to abhor the awful wickedness of ever confessing
the great desire that nature and education have combined to make the
chief longing of their hearts. We train them to lie to us, their
trainers; we train them to lie to themselves; to be false with
everybody on this subject; to say "no" when they mean "yes"; to deny an
engagement when they are dying to boast of it. It is one of the
refinements of Christian civilization which we pray the Women's
Missionary Society not to communicate to poor ignorant heathens who
know no better than to tell the truth about these things.

But, before I digressed into that line of remark, I was saying that
Miss Janet Dunton would have resented the most remote suggestion of
marriage. She often declared sentimentally that she was wedded to her
books, and loved her leisure, and was determined to be an old maid. And
all the time this sincere Christian girl was dying to confer herself
upon some worthy man of congenial tastes; which meant, in her case,
just what it did in John Harlow's--some one who could admire her
attainments. But, sensitive as she was to any imputation of a desire to
marry, she and Mrs. Holmes understood each other distinctly. There is a
freemasonry of women, and these two had made signs. They had talked
about in this wise:

_Mrs. Holmes._--My dear Janet, you'll find my brother a bear in
manners, I fear. I wish he would marry. I hope you won't break his
heart, for I know you wouldn't have him.

_Miss Dunton._--You know my views on that subject, my dear. I love
books, and shall marry nobody. Besides, your brother's great legal
and literary attainments would frighten such a poor little mouse as
I am.

And in saying those words they had managed to say that John Harlow was
an unsophisticated student, and that they would run him down between
them.

Mrs. Holmes and her friend had arrived twenty-four hours ahead of John,
and the daughter of the house had already installed herself as
temporary mistress by thoughtlessly upsetting, reversing, and turning
inside out all the good Huldah's most cherished arrangements. All the
plans for the annual festiva