thing over, which was done triumphantly.

The French Emperor, Louis Napoleon, who was a shrewd sort of a man
in his day and way, used to talk a great deal about the "logic of
events;" which language, being interpreted, my dear gentlemen, means
a good deal in domestic life. It means, for instance, that when you
drive the first nail, or tear down the first board, in the way of
alteration of an old house, you will have to make over every room and
corner in it, and pay as much again for it as if you built a new one.

John was able to sympathize with Lillie in her childish delight in the
new house, because he _loved_ her, and was able to put himself and his
own wishes out of the question for her sake; but, when all the bills
connected with this change came in, he had emotions with which Lillie
could not sympathize: first, because she knew nothing about figures,
and was resolved never to know any thing; and, like all people who
know nothing about them, she cared nothing;--and, second, because she
did _not_ love John.

Now, the truth is, Lillie would have been quite astonished to have
been told this. She, and many other women, suppose that they love
their husbands, when, unfortunately, they have not the beginning of an
idea what love is. Let me explain it to you, my dear lady. Loving to
be admired by a man, loving to be petted by him, loving to be caressed
by him, and loving to be praised by him, is not loving a man. All
these may be when a woman has no power of loving at all,--they may
all be simply because she loves herself, and loves to be flattered,
praised, caressed, coaxed; as a cat likes to be coaxed and stroked,
and fed with cream, and have a warm corner.

But all this _is not love_. It may exist, to be sure, where there _is_
love; it generally does. But it may also exist where there is no love.
Love, my dear ladies, is _self-sacrifice_; it is a life out of self
and in another. Its very essence is the preferring of the comfort, the
ease, the wishes of another to one's own, _for the_ love we bear
them. Love is giving, and not receiving. Love is not a sheet of
blotting-paper or a sponge, sucking in every thing to itself; it is
an out-springing fountain, giving from itself. Love's motto has been
dropped in this world as a chance gem of great price by the loveliest,
the fairest, the purest, the strongest of Lovers that ever trod this
mortal earth, of whom it is recorded that He said, "It is more blessed
to give than t