XXXVI.

A WHISPER TO ROMANTIC YOUNG

LADIES.

A crust of bread, a pitcher of water, a thatched roof, and love, there's happiness for you."

GIRLS! that's a humbug! The very thought of

it makes me groan. It's all moonshine. In fact, men and moonshine in my dictionary are synonymous.

"Water and a crust! RATHER spare diet! May do for the honey-moon. Don't make much difference then, whether you eat shavings or sardinesbut when you return to substantials, and your wedding dress is put away in a trunk for the benefit of posterity, if you can get your husband to smile on anything short of a 'sirloin' or a roast turkey, you are a lucky woman.

"Don't every married woman know that a man is as savage as a New Zealander when he's hungry ? and when he comes home to an empty cupboard and meets a dozen little piping mouths, (necessary accompaniments of 'cottages' and 'love,' clamorous for supper, Love will have the sulks,' or my name isn't Fanny. Lovers have a trick of getting disenchanted, too, when they see their Aramintas with dresses pinned up round the waist, hair powdered with sweeping, faces scowled up over the wash-tub, and soap-suds dripping from red elbows.

"We know these little accidents never happen in novels—where the heroine is always 'dressed in white, with a rose-bud in her hair,' and lives on blossoms and May dew! There are no wash-tubs or gridirons in her cottage; her children are born cherubim, with a seraphic contempt for dirt pies and molasses. She remains a beauty' to the end of the chapter, and steps out' just in time to anticipate her first gray hair, her husband drawing his last breath at the same time, as a dutiful husband should; and not falling into the unromantic error of outliving his grief, and marrying a second time!

"But this humdrum life, girls, is another affair, with its washing and ironing and cleaning days,

when children expect boxed ears, and visitors picked-up dinners. All the 'romance' there is in it, you can put under a three-cent piece!

"St. Paul says they who marry do well enough, but they who don't marry do WELL-ER! Sensible man that. Nevertheless, had I flourished in those times, I would have undertaken to change his sentiments; for those old-fashioned gentlemen were worth running after.

"One half the women marry for fear they shall be old maids. Now I'd like to know why an old maid is to be snubbed, any more than an old bachelor? Old bachelors receive the mitten,' occasionally, and old maids have been known to outlive several 'offers.' They are both useful in their way-particularly old bachelors!

"Now I intend to be an old maid;' and I shall found a mutual accommodation society, and admit old bachelors honorary members. They shall wait on us evenings, and we'll hem their pocket handkerchers and mend their gloves. No boys under thirty to be admitted. Irreproachable dickeys, immaculate shirt-bosoms and faultless boots indis pensable. Gentlemen always to sit on the opposite side of the room--no refreshments but ices! In

stant expulsion the consequence of the first attempt at love-making! No allusion to be made to Moore

or Byron! The little 'bye-laws' of the society not to be published! Moonlight evenings, the sisters are not at home! the moon being considered, from time immemorial, an unprincipled magnetiser!"

XXXVII.

A WOMAN WITH A SOUL.

(L A new affectation is to speak of the soul as feminine. For example, the London papers announce the third edition of 'The Soul, HER sorrows, and HER aspirations.'"

I

always thought John Bull was a goose; now I know it! A woman with a soul! I guess so! (made out of an old spare-rib!)` What on earth does she want of a soul? First thing you know, she'd be eating of the 'tree of knowledge,' and we had enough of that in Eve's day; I tell you there are none but masculine souls.

"It is a matter of astonishment and thanksgiving to me that men condescend to notice us at all. I trust all the sisters feel their inferiority, and know how to keep their place, as well as I do! It's next door to martyrdom when they speak to me, I'm in such a 'fluster' for fear I shall make some