Page:Notes on New Zealand (1892).pdf/256

246 this is true, and, in theory, such women are always at a premium, but the difference lies in the fact that with Colonials it is not merely a theory, but a confirmed practice, to admire and seek for women of this description as wives, to insist on having them, and to see that they get no other. The result is that the training of a New Zealand girl is in the direction of cultivating the qualities required, and of fitting her for the part she will be expected to take.

A man often comes out who is engaged to the proverbial "girl at home," but when he returns home on a visit the girl is generally married, much to the satisfaction