the wisest, and may most properly be treated as the senior or acting partner in the firm. "The good wife," says Fuller, "commandeth her husband in any equal matter, by constantly obeying him. It was always observed, that what the English gained of the French in battle by valour, the French regained of the English in cunning by treaties. So if the husband should chance by his power in his passion to prejudice his wife's right, she wisely knoweth by compounding and comply-ing, to recover and rectify it again." This is very much what the well-known lines in "Hiawatha" teach "As unto the bow the cord is, So unto the man is woman; Though she bends him, she obeys him ; Though she draws him, yet she follows; But indeed it is a sign of something being wrong between married people, when the question which of the two shall be subject to the other ever arises. It will never do so when both parties love as they ought, for then the struggle will be not who shall command and control, but who shall serve and yield. As Chaucer says "When mastery cometh, then sweet Love anon, Flappeth his nimble wings and soon away is flown." "It were better to meet some dangers half-way, though they come nothing near."-Bacon. "Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wreck'd.”—Milton. RIVE gently over the stones!" This piece of advice, which is frequently given to inexperienced whips, may be suggested metaphorically to the newly-married. On the road upon which they have entered there are stony places, which, if not carefully driven over, will almost certainly upset the domestic coach. To accompany one's wife harmoniously on an Irish car is easy compared to the task of accompanying her over these stones on the domestic car. The first rock ahead which should be signalled "dangerous" is the first year of married life. As a rule the first year either mars or makes a marriage. During this period errors may be committed which will cast a shadow over every year that follows. We agree with Mrs. Jameson in thinking that the first year of married life is not as happy as the second. People have to get into the habit of being married, and there are difficult lessons to be learned in the apprenticeship. A lady once asked Dr. Johnson how in his dictionary he came to define pastern the knee of a horse; he immediately answered, "Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance." This is the simple explanation of many an accident that takes place at the commencement of the matrimonial journey. The young couple have not yet learned the dangerous places of the road, and, as a consequence, they drive carelessly over them. How many people starting in married life throw happiness out of their grasp, and create troubles for the rest of their days! The cause may be generally traced to selfishness, their conceit taking everything that goes amiss as meant for a personal affront, and their wounded selfesteem making life a burden hard to bear, for themselves and others. We can all recognize in every circle such cases; we are all able to read the moral elsewhere; but in our own case we allow the small breach—that might be healed with very little effort at first-to get wider and wider, and the pair that should become closer and closer, gradually not only cease to care for, but have a dread of each other's society. There is one simple direction, which, if carefully regarded, might long preserve the tranquillity of the married life, and ensure no inconsiderable portion of connubial happiness to the observers of it: it is-to beware of the first dispute. "Man and wife," says Jeremy Taylor, 66 are equally concerned to avoid all offences of each other in the beginning of their conversation; every little thing can blast an infant blossom; and the breath of the south can shake the little rings of the vine, when first they begin to curl like the locks of a new weaned boy: but when by age and consolidation they stiffen into the hardness of a stem, and have, by the warm embraces of the sun and the kisses of heaven, brought forth their clusters, they can endure the storms of the north, and the loud noises of a tempest, and yet never be broken. So are the early unions of an unfixed marriage; watchful and observant, jealous and busy, inquisitive and careful, and apt to take alarm at every unkind word. After the hearts of the man and the wife are endeared and hardened by a mutual confidence and experience, longer than artifice and pretence can last, there are a great many remembrances, and some things present, that dash all little unkindnesses in pieces.” Every little dispute between man and wife is dangerous. It forces good-humour out of its channel, undermines affection, and insidiously, though perhaps insensibly, wears out and, at, last, entirely destroys that cordiality which is the life and soul of matrimonial felicity. As however "it's hardly in a body's power to keep at times from being sour," undue importance ought not to be attached to "those little tiffs that sometimes cast a shade on wedlock." Often they are, as the poet goes on to observe, "love in masquerade-- "And family jars, look we but o'er the rim, Are filled with honey, even to the brim." In the Life of St. Francis de Sales we are told that the saint did not approve of the saying, "Never rely on a reconciled enemy." He rather preferred a contrary maxim, and said that a quarrel between friends, when made up, added a new tie to friendship; as experience shows that the calosity formed round a broken bone makes it stronger than before. Beware of jealousy; "it is the green-eyed monster, which doth make the meat it feeds on." Here is an amusing case in point. A French lady who was jealous of her husband determined to watch his movements. One day, when he told her he was going to Versailles, she folhim, keeping him in sight until she missed him in a passage leading to the railway station. Looking about her for a few minutes, she saw a man coming out of a glove-shop with a rather overdressed lady. Blinded with rage and jealousy, she fancied it was her husband, and without pausing for a moment to consider, bounced suddenly up to him and gave him three or four stinging boxes. on the ear. The instant the gentleman turned round, she discovered her mistake, and at the same moment caught sight of her husband, who had merely called at a tobacconist's, and was now crossing the street. There was nothing for it but to faint in the arms of the gentleman she had attacked; while the other lady moved away, to avoid a scene. The stranger, astonished to find an unknown lady in his arms, was further startled by a gentleman seizing him by the collar and demanding to know what he meant by embracing that lady. "Why, sir, she boxed my ears, and then fainted," exclaimed the innocent victim. "She is my wife," shouted the angry hus |