f
married life. It being cheaper, as a rule, for man and wife to travel
together than for brother and sister, the brother has an idea of future
expense awaiting him (after he shall have married) which is on the right
side of an estimate--that is, the surplus side. The sister's mind is
broadened by this kindness and self-sacrifice of the brother. She has a
higher opinion of manhood, and her choice will fall all the higher up.
What makes our finest girls often go through the forest of maidenhood
rejecting the most promising staffs of support, and, finally, nearing
the plains of spinsterhood, pick up in a panic

THE CROOKEDEST STICK OF THE LOT?

It is mainly the brother's fault. He has not shown her how much of a man
he himself can be, and she has not noticed the manly qualities of many
of the admirers whom she has passed by in disdain. A wise young woman
should be on the lookout for gentleness and courage in man. If she finds
those qualities--if she can only become aware they are there, her heart
will relent in spite of her, and there will be no hesitancy in her final
choice, nor regret in her final retrospect.

IN YOUR SISTER

you behold the exact complement of yourself. Yourself and herself,
brother and sister, are the links which your parents have left to hold
their minds, their qualities, their aggregated development and
progression, to the earth. All that your parents were, yourself and your
sister will perpetuate, adding the acquirements of your own lives. You
have in your sister an opportunity for self-study without its like or
equal. Where your sister is weak, there are you weak (naturally) also.
Your vanity may conceal the fact in your own nature, but her character
will express it to you.

STRENGTHEN UP THESE POINTS.

As the calker goes through the hold of the ship, peering intently for
light, or listening for the trickling of water, so should you, in
observing your sister's character and family peculiarities, find and
calk up all the treacherous leaks in your own nature. Her carelessness
is your forgetfulness. Mend it. Her heedlessness is undoubtedly your
recklessness. Send out scouts. Her impatience is possibly your high
temper. Hit yourself when you are in rage, and thus learn its folly. I
know of a man who once came within an inch of braining his
fellow-soldier. They were lying on the grass, when the fellow struck my
friend a smart blow with the iron ramrod of a Springfield musket, all in
fun, y