hout any limit. Confidence
is, in this case, nothing unless it be reciprocal. To have a trust-worthy
wife, you must begin by showing her, even before you are married, that
you have no suspicions, no fears, no doubts, with regard to her. Many a
man has been discarded by a virtuous girl, merely on account of his
querulous conduct. All women despise jealous men; and, if they marry
such their motive is other than that of affection. Therefore, _begin_ by
proofs of unlimited confidence; and, as _example_ may serve to assist
precept, and as I never have preached that which I have not practised, I
will give you the history of my own conduct in this respect.

94. When I first saw my wife, she was _thirteen years old_, and I was
within about a month of _twenty-one_. She was the daughter of a Serjeant
of artillery, and I was the Serjeant-Major of a regiment of foot, both
stationed in forts near the city of St. John, in the Province of
New-Brunswick. I sat in the same room with her, for about an hour, in
company with others, and I made up my mind that she was the very girl
for me. That I thought her beautiful is certain, for that I had always
said should be an indispensable qualification; but I saw in her what I
deemed marks of that sobriety of _conduct_ of which I have said so much,
and which has been by far the greatest blessing of my life. It was now
dead of winter, and, of course, the snow several feet deep on the
ground, and the weather piercing cold. It was my habit, when I had done
my morning's writing, to go out at break of day to take a walk on a hill
at the foot of which our barracks lay. In about three mornings after I
had first seen her, I had, by an invitation to breakfast with me, got up
two young men to join me in my walk; and our road lay by the house of
her father and mother. It was hardly light, but she was out on the snow,
scrubbing out a washing-tub. 'That's the girl for me,' said I, when we
had got out of her hearing. One of these young men came to England soon
afterwards; and he, who keeps an inn in Yorkshire, came over to Preston,
at the time of the election, to verify whether I were the same man. When
he found that I was, he appeared surprised; but what was his surprise,
when I told him that those tall young men, whom he saw around me, were
the _sons_ of that pretty little girl that he and I saw scrubbing out
the washing-tub on the snow in New-Brunswick at day-break in the
morning!

95. From the day that I