happiness" that struck me most. "Never being called in the morning,"
was one lazy person's reply. "To write M.P. after my name," was the
ambition of another. "Married life," wrote the bride on the completion
of her honeymoon. Ah, little bride, you have been married some years
now. Are your ideas still the same, I wonder? "A good partner, a good
floor, and good music," said a fourth, and it is this one that has my
entire sympathy. I agree with her. It is my idea also of "the greatest
earthly happiness." I do not require much, you see. These are not very
difficult things to procure now-a-days; and yet I am often taunted
with my love of dancing. If I express disapproval of a man, "I suppose
he can't dance," they say with a sneer.

Now though that accomplishment is a necessity in a ball-room, I do
_not_ consider it indispensable in a husband. Unfortunately you cannot
dance through life. I wish you could for many reasons. A continual
change of partners, for instance, would it not be refreshing? You
would scarcely have time to grow tired of them. And how much more
polite our husbands would be if they thought we were only fleeting
joys! What am I saying? I am shocking everyone I am afraid; the
little matron who advocates married life, the newly-made brides whose
ideal men are realized in their husbands--I am shocking them all! I
humbly plead forgiveness. You see, I am not married myself. I can only
give my impressions as a looker-on, and, as Thackeray says, "One is
bound to speak the truth as far as one knows it, and a deal of
disagreeable matter must come out in the course of such an
undertaking."

But dancing _is_ indispensable in a ball-room. If a man cannot dance
he should stay away, and not make an object of himself. Unfortunately,
so many think they excel in the art when they have not the least idea
of it. Again, with girls, dancing (in a ball-room only, of course)
comes before charm of manner, before wit, even before beauty. I know
girls, absolutely plain, with not a word to say for themselves, who
dance every dance, while the walls of the room are lined with pretty
faces, and dismal-looking enough they are too, which is very foolish
of them. They should have too much pride to show their discomfiture.

Men have so much the best of it at dances--so everybody says. I am
afraid I do not agree. I would not change our positions for anything.
After all, a girl can nearly always dance with anyone she likes, and
pick and cho