of bodily and mental exertion, against which the affections
can make but little head. Indeed, some of the most distinguished in
arts, in arms, if not in song, seem to have gone down to their graves
without ever giving themselves time to indulge in any one of these.
Perhaps they never missed a sentiment which would have been very much in
their way if they had felt it. If all tales are true, mathematics are a
very effectual Nenuphar. But with women it is different. _They_ can't be
always clambering up unexplored peaks, or inventing improvements in
gunnery, or commanding irregular corps, or bringing in faultless reform
bills, or finding out constellations, or shooting big game, or resorting
to any of _our_ thousand-and-one safety-valves to superfluous
excitement. Are crochet, or crossed letters, or charity-schools, or even
Cochins and _Creve-coeurs_, so entirely engrossing as to drown forever
the reproaches of nature, that will make herself heard? If not, surely
the most phlegmatically proper of her sex does sometimes feel sad and
dissatisfied when she thinks that she has never been able to care for
any one more than for her own brother. It must seem hard that, when the
frost of old age comes on, she shall not have even a memory to look upon
to warm her. But in the world here, such temptations to discontent
abound; but the most guileless votary of the _Sacre Coeur_ might
confess regrets and misgivings like these without meriting any extra
allowance of fast and scourge.

If we were to reckon up the cases we have heard of women who have "gone
wrong," and made, if not _mesalliances_, at least marriages inexplicable
on any rational grounds, it would fill up a long summer's day, even
without drawing on darker recollections of post-nuptial transgression.
In these last cases, perhaps, the altar and absolute indifference was a
more dangerous element than Mrs. Malaprop's "little aversion," which is,
at all events, a _positive_, thing to work upon. Lethargies are harder
to cure, they say, than fevers. Certainly they have the warning examples
of others who have so erred, and paid for it by a life-long repentance;
but that never has stopped them yet, and never will. Remember the reply
of the _debutante_ to her austere parent when the latter refused to take
her to a ball, saying that "_she_ had seen the folly of such things." "I
want to see the folly of them too." Few of us men can realize the
feeling that, with our sisters, may accoun