rvants? This want of knowledge of arithmetic is the cause, not only of
great waste, but of great misery. Many a family of good position has
fallen into destitution merely because of their ignorance of this branch
of knowledge.

Young people often rush into marriage without reflection. A young man
meets a pretty face in a ball-room, likes it, dances with it, flirts
with it, and goes home to dream about it. At length he falls in love
with it, courts it, marries it, and then he takes the pretty face home,
and begins to know something more about it. All has as yet been "very
jolly." The face has hitherto been charming, graceful, artless, and
beautiful. It has now to enter upon another sphere of life. It has to be
seen much closer; it has to be seen daily; and it has to begin
housekeeping.

Most newly married people require some time to settle quietly down
together. Even those whose married life has been the happiest, arrive at
peace and repose through a period of little struggles and bewilderments.
The husband does not all at once find his place, nor the wife hers. One
of the very happiest women we know has told us, that the first year of
her married life was the most uncomfortable of all. She had so much to
learn--was so fearful of doing wrong--and had not yet found her proper
position. But, feeling their way, kind and loving natures will have no
difficulty in at last settling down comfortably and peacefully together.

It was not so with the supposed young man and his pretty "face." Both
entered upon their new life without thinking; or perhaps with
exaggerated expectations of its unalloyed happiness. They could not make
allowances for lovers subsiding into husband and wife; nor were they
prepared for the little ruffles and frettings of individual temper; and
both felt disappointed. There was a relaxation of the little attentions
which are so novel and charming to lovers. Then the pretty face, when
neglected, found relief in tears.

There is nothing of which men tire sooner, especially when the tears are
about trifles. Tears do not in such cases cause sympathy, but breed
repulsion. They occasion sourness, both on the one side and the other.
Tears are dangerous weapons to play with. Were women to try kindness and
cheerfulness instead, how infinitely happier would they be. Many are the
lives that are made miserable by an indulgence in fretting and carking,
until the character is indelibly stamped, and the rational enjoymen