his is the ideal, from which any departure
is deterioration.

THE ENGAGEMENT.

When our grandmothers were engaged, the minister rose in his pulpit on
Sunday morning, before the assembled congregation, and proclaimed the
'banns,' stating that if any one knew just cause or lawful impediment
why the lovers should not be married, he should state it there and then.
Sometimes a great hubbub was created when some discarded suitor rose,
forbidding the banns, and claimed that the capricious maiden had
previously promised herself to him. Perhaps it was to avoid such an
uncomfortable check on the freedom of flirtation that the ancient custom
was dropped.

Certain it is, that to be 'engaged' sits very lightly on the minds of
both young men and maidens now-a-days. We know some of either sex who
make it a boast how often they have made and unmade this slender tie. It
is a dangerous pastime. 'The hand of little use hath the daintier
touch,' and they who thus trifle with their affections will end by
losing the capacity to feel any real affection at all.

Undoubtedly there occur instances where a woman has pledged herself in
all seriousness, and afterwards sees her affianced in a light which
warns her that she cannot be happy with him,--that the vows she will be
called upon to pronounce at the altar will be hollow and false. What is
she to do?

We are not inditing the decrees of the Court of Love. Here is the advice
of another to her hand:

'First to thine own self be true,
And then it follows, as the night the day,
That thou canst ne'er be false to any man.'

CONCERNING LONG ENGAGEMENTS.

They are hurtful, and they are unnecessary. Is love so vagrant that it
must be tied by such a chain? Better let it go. True love asks no oath;
it casteth out fear, and believes without a promise.

There are other reasons, sound physiological reasons, which we could
adduce, if need were, to show that the close personal relations which
arise between persons who are engaged should not be continued too long a
time. They lead to excitement and debility, sometimes to danger and
disease. Especially is this true of nervous, excitable, sympathetic
dispositions.

If we are asked to be definite, and give figures, we should say that a
period not longer than a year, nor shorter than three months, should
intervene between the engagement and the marriage.

THE RIGHT TIME OF YEAR TO MARRY.

Woman, when she marries, enters upon a