desperation instead of hope, with it. Never can she
quite regain her maiden place; an _aura_ of a doubtful kind fetters
and influences her in every effort or relation of her future life.

In the early glamour of a love affair, women do not see these things,
but fathers and mothers do; they know that "the world is _not_ well
lost for love," and they have a right to protest against such folly.
In an imprudent love affair, every day is so much gained; therefore
when this foolishness is bound up in the heart of a youth or a maiden,
the best of all plans is to arrange for time,--as long an engagement
as possible.

But I will suppose that all my unmarried readers have found proper
mates who will stand the test of parental wisdom and a fairly long and
exacting engagement, and that after some happy months they will not
only be "woo'd," but "married and a'." Now begins their real life, and
for the woman the first step is _renunciation_. She must give up with
a good grace the exaggeration and romance of love-making, and accept
in its place that far better tenderness which is the repose of
passion, and which springs from the tranquil depths of a man's best
nature.

The warmest-hearted and most unselfish women soon learn to accept
quiet trust and the loyalty of a loving life as the calmest and
happiest condition of marriage; and the men who are sensible enough to
rely on the good sense of such wives sail round the gushing adorers,
both for true affection and comfortable tranquillity.

Just let a young wife remember that her husband necessarily is under a
certain amount of bondage all day; that his interests compel him to
look pleasant under all circumstances to offend none, to say no hasty
word, and she will see that when he reaches his own fireside he wants
most of all to have this strain removed to be at ease; but this he
cannot be if he is continually afraid of wounding his wife's
sensibilities by forgetting some outward and visible token of his
affection for her. Besides, she pays him but a poor compliment in
refusing to believe what he does not continually assert; and by
fretting for what it is unreasonable to desire she deeply wrongs
herself, for--

"A woman moved is like a fountain troubled,
Muddy, ill-seeming, thick, bereft of beauty."

Shall our Daughters have Dowries?

Those who occupy themselves reading that writing on the wall which we
call "signs of the times" may ponder awhile the question which