You can
have no more certain assurance that you are to be victimized, your soul and
body offered up, _slain_, on the altar of his sensualism, than his
unwillingness to converse with you on subjects so vital to your happiness.
Unless he is willing to hold his manhood in abeyance to the calls of your
nature and to your conditions, and consecrate its passions and its powers
to the elevation and happiness of his wife and children, your maiden soul
had better return to God unadorned with the diadem of conjugal and maternal
love than that you should become the wife of such a man and the mother of
his children. {193}

[Illustration: ROMAN LOVE MAKING.]

* * * * *

{194}

POPPING THE QUESTION.

[Illustration: Uniformed Men are always Popular with the Ladies.]

1. MAKING THE DECLARATION.--There are few emergencies in business and few
events in life that bring to man the trying ordeal of "proposing to a
lady." We should be glad to help the bashful lover in his hours of
perplexity, embarrassment and hesitation, but unfortunately we cannot pop
the question for him, nor give him a formula by which {195} he may do it.
Different circumstances and different surroundings compel every lover to be
original in his form or mode of proposing.

2. BASHFULNESS.--If a young man is very bashful, he should write his
sentiments in a clear, frank manner on a neat white sheet of note paper,
enclose it in a plain white envelope and find some way to convey it to the
lady's hand.

3. THE ANSWER.--If the beloved one's heart is touched, and she is in
sympathy with the lover, the answer should be frankly and unequivocally
given. If the negative answer is necessary, it should be done in the
kindest and most sympathetic language, yet definite, positive and to the
point, and the gentleman should at once withdraw his suit and continue
friendly but not familiar.

4. SAYING "NO" FOR "YES."--If girls are foolish enough to say "No" when
they mean "Yes," they must suffer the consequences which often follow. A
man of intelligence and self-respect will not ask a lady twice. It is
begging for recognition and lowers his dignity, should he do so. A lady is
supposed to know her heart sufficiently to consider the question to her
satisfaction before giving an answer.

5. CONFUSION OF WORDS AND MISUNDERSTANDING.--Sometimes a man's happiness,
has depended on his manner of popping the question. Many a time the girl
has said "No"