men, they will not fail soon to acknowledge their error, and to accompany it with the proper marks of penitence. If they are without consciences, then indeed is your condition a sad one. Of those, however, who cannot be overcome by persevering kindness and faithfulness, the number is exceedingly small.

Eugene and Juliet entered into a mutual engagement of the kind here referred to, and faithfully pursued their respective tasks. But Eugene was sometimes irritable when told of a fault, and in some instances even complained; while Juliet continued immovable; and in his moments of perfect coolness, gently reminded him of his error. Ashamed of himself, he promised amendment; but his natural irritability of temper again and again overcame him. More than once did Juliet urge him to relinquish his engagement-but to no purpose. He was determined on reformation, and fully resolved on pursuing the means most likely to accomplish the object.

But it was not till after the lapse of six months or more, that he attained to the complete command of his temper, and could bear to be corrected in the minutest matters. However, perseverance at last succeeded, and a complete victory is now gained, of which he and his wife and the world are now reaping the benefits.

To enumerate the thousand little errors of habit and manner to which we are liable, especially when we have been trained in the ordinary circumstances of New England families and schools, in which almost all these things are either overlooked or sacrificed to 'the hurry of business, is far from being my present intention. My main object was to lay down the principle, and leave each young wife to make the application. I will only observe that if you find habits of uncleanliness very prominent, do not be discouraged, but persevere with resolute kindness, hoping for final complete success. No one can know what may, in this way, be accomplished, till she has tried it. Remember that the removal of some bad habits, though they may seem trifling in themselves, is worth years of patient and untiring effort. Remember, too, that you are laboring, in these circumstances, not only for your husband and yourself, but for others, whose conduct and habits may and inevitably will be influenced, more or less, by your example.

CHAPTER XXVII.

DRESS.

Opinion of Paul. Real objects of dress. Modesty. Dress should regulate our temperature. Frequent change—why useful. General rule. A painful sight. Nature of profuse perspiration, or sweating. Material of dress. Objections to cotton. Fashion of dress. Compression of the lungsits evils. Sympathies. Moderate indulgence. Hiding defects by dress. Dress of the husband.

ON the subject of dress, Paul has some excellent remarks, in his epistles. While he does not condemn a proper regard to one's attire, he insists strongly on plainness and modesty; and inveighs against a fondness for ornaments. "I will," says he, "that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shame-facedness and sobriety; not with broidered hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array, but with good works."

Never, perhaps, within the same compass, was better advice on this subject given to femalesespecially to married females. For if broidered hair and other ornaments were proper individual, they are, at least, wholly unbecoming

for any.
any other

in a wife. She should be, above all, a model of simplicity, both in manners and in dress.

She should remember, first, the true objects of dress. To set off one's person is not, and never was, its primary object. Our dress is to cover us, to assist in regulating our temperature, to defend us from injuries, and to improve our appearance.

The mention of dress, as a means of improving our appearance, will no doubt be regarded, by many, as a full license to every indulgence, and every excess. But I mean not so much. Remember I do not place it first, but last, among the objects of dress. Nor does it follow, because I give it a place in the list—the last place that any one is to be justified in inverting that order, and putting it at the head of the catalogue.

There are those who defeat, by its fashion, the first object for which dress was intended. Clothing, even in civilized life, does not always cover us. It sometimes leaves us partly uncovered; and this, too, not only in violation of every rule of common sense, but of the apostolic injunction—“I will that women adorn themselves in modest apparel."

I do not, of course, allude here to those violations of common sense and common decency, practised at this very time in our theatres, and countenanced, directly or indirectly, by some of

those who consider themselves as sustaining, if not the first, at least an important station in societyviolations which are a shame not only to our cities, but to our whole community-for with these, I hope and trust, few young wives will have anything to do. Their very presence and countenance would, in my view, be disgraceful to them. But I allude rather to those more common exposures of the chest and limbs which custom has sometimes tolerated, and which are even now sometimes practised, but which are no less improper than unhealthy.

Whatever others may or may not do, the young wife should set an example of the utmost regard to modesty in all her attire. As to the fashion, I shall not, of course, attempt to dictate. I suppose that there is a very wide range of fashion allowable, which is quite within the pale of modesty. The most refined or even fastidious French taste needs not, in any possible case, to pass its bounds. The second grand object of dress is to regulate our temperature. I might perhaps say that its object is to increase our temperature—since it seldom if ever happens that our dress, in strictness of language, serves to cool us. In changing from a lower temperature to a higher one, as in passing from winter to summer, or even under the influence of a burning sun, one dress may be said to be