s state of affairs gives a man every advantage and all
possible liberty of choice.

Our grandparents are scandalised at modern methods. "Girls never did
so," in the distant years when those dear people were young. If a young
man called on grandmother once a week, and she approved of him and his
prospects, she began on her household linen, without waiting for the
momentous question.

Judging by the fiction of the period and by the delightful tales of old
New England, which read like fairy stories to this generation, the
courtships of those days were too leisurely to be very interesting.
Ten-year engagements did not seem to be unusual, and it was not
considered a social mistake if a man suddenly disappeared for four or
five years, without the formality of mentioning his destination to the
young woman who expected to marry him.

[Sidenote: Faithful Maidens]

We have all read of the faithful maidens who kept on weaving stores of
fine linen and making regular pilgrimages for the letter which did not
come. Years afterward, when the man finally appeared, it was all right,
and the wedding went on just the same, even though in the meantime the
recreant knight had married and been bereaved.

Two or three homeless children were sometimes brought cheerfully into
the story, and assisted materially in the continuation of the
interrupted courtship. The tears which the modern spinster sheds over
such a tale are not at the pathos of the situation, but because it is
possible, even in fiction, for a woman to be so destitute of spirit.

[Sidenote: Without Saying a Word]

"In dem days," as Uncle Remus would say, any attention whatever meant
business. Small courtesies which are without significance now were
fraught with momentous import then. In this year of grace, among all
races except our own, there are ways in which a man may definitely
commit himself without saying a word.

A flower or a serenade is almost equivalent to a proposal in sunny
Spain. A "walking-out" period of six months is much in vogue in other
parts of Europe, but the daughter of the Anglo-Saxon has no such guide
to a man's intentions.

Among certain savage tribes, if a man is in love with a girl and wishes
to marry her, he drags her around his tent by the hair or administers a
severe beating. It may be surmised that these attentions are not
altogether pleasant, but she has the advantage of knowing what the man
means.

Flowers are a pretty courtesy and nothin