ness of the young people to enter on the solemn duties of life--do
not ask how well they have been instructed concerning that which is
before them; but the questions are all about clothes and gifts and
ceremonials. No wonder, then, that the thought of the young woman
centers on these things, to the exclusion of nearly all else; indeed,
it may be to the detriment of health and the lessening of true
happiness. The prospective husband finds his _fiancee_ so absorbed in
sewing, shopping and interviews with dressmakers that she has few
moments to give to him, and these few occupied more with the thought
of gowns and personal adornments than with ideals of wedded happiness.

Perhaps she even excuses herself for lessening the number of his
visits on the plea that very soon now she will be all his, and so he
is left to spend his last days of bachelorhood in loneliness, and made
to feel that raiment is more than love. Worse still, it may be that on
the wedding-day he takes to his heart a bride so wearied, so nervously
exhausted by the preparations of the _trousseau_ that she is at least
temporarily an invalid. I have known more than one bride so worn out
by the preparation for her wedding that instead of bringing
brightness, joy and beauty into the new life, she brought illness,
anxiety and care, and made demands at once upon the patience and
service of the husband, who had a right to expect health and vigor and
a power to enjoy.

I knew a sensible girl who said months before her marriage, "I am not
going to bring to my new life a remnant of health, a shattered nervous
system and a tattered temper," and she kept her word. Her sewing was
done by degrees, and was all out of the way weeks before the wedding.
Shopping and dressmaking were never allowed to interfere with the
walks and drives, the chats and moonlight strolls. "We shall not be
able to repeat this experience," she wisely said, and so her lover
found her ever ready to give him her society and her thought. Her
_trousseau_ was not elaborate, her wedding-dress was simple, but in it
she shone like a flower of the morning, full of brightness and health
and joy.

She was wise in other respects. Only her intimate friends were invited
to the wedding ceremony, and to these she said, "I want you to feel
that it is you I invite, not your gifts. If your love impels you to
give me some simple memento of yourself it will be cherished, but I'd
rather have a pincushion made by your o