of a life-companion. No man is better for having a wife that talks too much. He learns that he cannot confide in her, and when she discovers his reservation, both are miserable. Avoid the "telltales" among your lady acquaintances. Don't give them your heart, and life, and possessions to gossip over. No matter how charmingly they talk or how beautiful they look, don't marry them. Some poet of the seventeenth century wrote stanzas appropriate here:

"Give me instead of Beauty's bust,

A tender heart, a loyal mind.
Which with temptation I would trust,
Yet never linked with error find,—

"One in whose gentle bosom I

Could pour my secret heart of woes,
Like the care-burthened honey-fly,
That hides his murmurs in the rose,-

"My earthly comforter! whose love
So indefeasible might be,

That when my spirit wonned above,

Hers could not stay, for sympathy."

In marrying, men should seek happy women. Style, beauty, talent, as wifely qualifications, bear no comparison with the magical power of being happy under all circumstances. "Rich or poor, high or low, it makes no difference, the bright little fountain bubbles up just as musically in our hearts. Nothing ever goes wrong with them-no trouble is too serious for them to make the best of it. Was ever the stream of calamity so dark and deep that the sunlight of a happy face falling across its turbid tide would not make an answering gleam? Why, then, joyous tempered people don't know half the good they do. No matter how cross and crabbed they feel, no matter if your brain is full of meditation on afflicting dispensations, and your stomach with medicines, pills and tonics-just one of those cheery little women talking to you, and you are not afraid to wager anything she can cure you. The longer drawn lines about the mouth will relax-the cloud of settled gloom will vanish, nobody knows where, and the first thing you know you will be laughing. Oh, what a blessing are these happy women!

"How often their little hands guide the ponderous machinery of life, with almost an invisible touch! How we look forward through the weary day for their fireside smiles! No one knows, no one will ever know, until the day of judgment reveals, how much we owe to these helpful, hopeful, uncomplaining happy women."

These happy wives are the ones that answer to Leigh Hunt's reference to "An Angel in the House":

HOME LIFE.

"How sweet it were, if without feeble fright
Or dving of the dreadful beauteous sight,
An angel came to us, and we could bear
To see him issue from the silent air

At evening in our room, and bend on ours

His divine eyes, and bring us from his bowers

News of dear friends, and children who have never
Been dead indeed-as we shall know forever.

Alas! we think not that we daily see

About our hearths angels that are to be,
Or may be if they will, and we prepare
Their souls and ours to meet in happy air:
A child, a friend, a wife whose soft heart sings
In unison with ours, breeding its future wings."

Milton tells us that a good wife is "Heaven's last, best gift to If she is in the highest sense good, she is virtuous, pure in thought and feeling, generous in temper, forgiving in disposition, patient, spirited, industrious, cultivated and refined. She has ability to govern her household with gentle resolution, and rightly to comprehend the situation of her husband's affairs. Solomon described such a one in his day when he suggested that the value of a virtuous woman is far above rubies. The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands. She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms. She stretcheth out her hand to the poor. She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household are clothed with scarlet. She maketh herself coverings of tapestry; her clothing is silk and purple. Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of the land. She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of kindness."

For the ladies we find equally good advice about marrying. With women, as with men, deliberation is sensible. Those that marry in haste not infrequently repent at leisure. In these days when, by taking care of health and seeking a measure of business qualification, women can easily earn their own living, it is not necessary for them to marry simply for a home and sustenance.

e allowing themselves to be courted, they should first decide