red so entertaining; that no one else can be so
wise, so witty, so sympathetic, so altogether lovely, that everything
but yourself is forgotten; and then believe in him so absolutely that
he could not possibly swerve in his fidelity to you. Have you ever
thought that to accuse one of a certain wrong act may be just the way
to suggest to him the possibility of committing it? If one trusts you
implicitly, that very trust is a constant suggestion to be true, and
doubt is a suggestion to act worthy of being doubted.

You must trust each other or you have no sure foundation for future
love and happiness. It needs a great deal of good common sense to
learn how to live happily in marriage. You may have chosen wisely. The
man may be honest, pure, kindly, intelligent, and Christian, but he is
human, therefore not perfect. He has faults, peculiarities, moods,
perhaps tempers, and he will probably not wait until you are married
to begin to show them. There will come differences of opinions,
divergences in desires, clashings in judgment. Now is the time to
display your tact, to learn how to express an opposing opinion without
arousing antagonism, to yield a desire for the sake of a greater love
than that of self, to adhere to principle without unpleasant
discussion; in short, to be dignified and womanly without pettiness or
littleness of any kind. You remember the words of Ruskin, that the
woman must be "incorruptibly good, instinctively, infallibly wise, not
for self-development, but for self-renunciation," and that will be the
highest development.

No doubt you will think that some of this advice should be given to
young men as well as to young women, and I think so too, and were I
talking to your lover I could say many warning words; but just now I
am telling you things that he does not need to hear, and I do not need
to tell you what, if I had the chance, I would say to him. You are to
train yourself and not him, and yet I would not have you ignorant of
your power over him in developing in him all that is noblest and best.
You should hold him ever to his highest ideals. He should never feel
so absolutely sure of your adoration as to imagine that it will endure
a lowering of his standards. You have been posing a little before each
other. Doubtless you were not aware of this, but, now that you have
each gained the heart of the other, you may sometimes feel that you
can relax; but this is a dangerous error. You should continue to