Page:Diary of a Pilgrimage (1891).pdf/184

 dainty heads so full of unwisdom! how often-oh! how often, are you to be warned that it is not always the sweetest thing in lovers that is the best material to make a good-wearing husband out of? "The lover sighing like a furnace" will not go on sighing like a furnace for ever. That furnace will go out. He will become the husband, "full of strange oaths—jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel," and grow "into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon." How will he wear? There will be no changing him if he does not suit, no sending him back to be altered, no having him let out a bit where he is too tight and hurts you, no having him taken in where he is too loose, no laying him by when the cold comes, to wrap yourself up in something warmer. As he is when you select him, so he will have to last you all your life—through all changes, through all seasons.

Yes, he looks very pretty now—handsome pattern, if the colours are fast and it does not fade—feels soft and warm to the touch. How will he stand the world's rough weather? How will he stand life's wear-and-tear?

He looks so manly and brave. His hair curls so divinely. He dresses so well (I wonder if the tailor's bill is paid?) He kisses your hand so gracefully. He calls you such pretty names. His arm feels so strong around you. His fine eyes are so full of tenderness as they gaze down into yours.

Will he kiss your hand when it is wrinkled and old? Will he call you pretty names when the baby is crying in the night, and you cannot keep it quiet—or, better still, will he sit up and take a turn with it? Will his arm be strong around you in the days of trouble? Will his eyes shine above you full of tenderness when yours are growing dim?