other places where the standards are as high as in her own
home.

What are the qualities which most attract men? It is hard to say,
because many of the women most loved in their own families and by other
women are not interesting to even the best of men. Probably
warm-heartedness and sweetness of character stand first in the list, and
these are qualities worth cultivating for themselves. Vitality and high
spirits count for much, also. Beauty I think comes next, even with men
who do not care for mere beauty. I do not think we should be indignant
at this. But can beauty be cultivated? Good health does something for
the complexion. Care of the teeth adds another point of beauty. Even
rough hair may be made beautiful by constant brushing. A good carriage
and a gentle voice are points of beauty that depend partly on ourselves.
Taste may be used in dress without sacrificing simplicity. Scrupulous
cleanliness adds a charm of its own. All these attractions may be
cultivated without nourishing the noxious weed of vanity, which many
mothers dread so much. And is it not natural that a man who can
appreciate a good and intelligent woman should find her still more
winning if she has a sweet, fresh face and a trim dress?

Next we must place domestic tastes. Of course a cook and seamstress and
housekeeper can be hired, and it is quite true that the home instinct is
not the highest in the universe; but it is a fine one, nevertheless, and
at all events it does influence most men in marriage.

Intelligent men like intelligent wives, and value a certain brightness
of mind; but it must be admitted that few men care to marry intellectual
women unless such women have the tact to keep their gifts somewhat in
the background. (I may here say,--it is not worth more than a
parenthesis--that the infallible rule for securing some kind of a
husband is to be able to flatter a man, either by a real or pretended
interest in him, or a real or pretended admiration of his powers. But I
hope I have no reader who would wish for marriage on such terms, so I
will not catalogue any attractions which ought not to win.) You remember
how Charles Lamb speaks of his Cousin Bridget's knowledge of English
literature. "If I had twenty girls, they should all be educated in
exactly the same way. Their chances of marriage might not be increased
by it, but if worst came to worst, it would make them most incomparable
old maids." If a woman is not married in the end, the