What a Young Wife Ought to Know. Emma F. Angell Drake

change our republic into a monarchy. Rank is a real possession of the Englishmen, but we do not own it and never did, and in trying to set up a sham, pinchbeck imitation of it, we are losing the solid strength and repose and wealth out of our lives.”

      When the bridal trousseau is wisely chosen, the home will be furnished with like taste and wisdom. The furniture that is really needed, and that of the best, dresses the house far more elegantly than can a vulgar profusion of showy articles. Tinsel bric-a-brac, cheap cushions and tidies and bed-coverings proclaim the uncultured taste of the home-keeper. Strong honest denim is far more elegant than sleazy satin for sofa pillows, and has this virtue, that it can be easily made as good as new by washing. No hangings at all are better than cheap hangings at windows and doors, unless they are of an honest cheapness that soap and water will not spoil, but make as good as new.

      Our foremothers came to their wedding day supplied with chests filled with plain durable linen, of their own weaving and fashioning, bed-linen and quilts and spreads in substantial profusion; but with little in the line of showy outside dress; and their whole after lives were but the expression of the wisdom and good judgment of their beginning.

      “The crying need of many of us to-day, is not for more, but less. We have too much, so that our lives are robbed of all simplicity. We are choked by our possessions, as the Roman maiden by the golden bracelets for which she betrayed the city.

      “Our artificialities make a veil between our souls and God. We have not mastered them, but they have mastered us.”

CHAPTER VII.

       THE MARITAL RELATIONS.

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