were a doll; very soon after twenty they discover it is a dynamo. This
is why

An early and clandestine engagement often works more havoc than
happiness. For

Either, one of the parties to the concealed compact receives or pays
attention which perturb the other; or, a subsequent and acknowledged
lover looks askance at the previous entanglement. Since even if

A clandestine engagement (as is usually the case) is merely a flirtation
with the emoluments which accompany a promise to marry, those emoluments
are not nice things for a subsequent and avowed lover, whether masculine
or feminine, to think upon. Lastly,

A laxity with regard to the claims of courtship is apt to breed a laxity
with regard to the claims of wedlock. In short,

Flirtations, like clandestine engagements, are an affront to love.
Accordingly

To the engagement-ring should be as attached as much importance as to the
wedding-ring. Indeed,

A difficult and a delicate path it is that a girl has to tread through
life--and often enough a dangerous. Yet with extraordinary deftness she
treads it. She must win her a mate, yet has to pretend that the mate
wins her. She makes believe to be captured, yet has herself to be intent
on the chase. To be wooed and wedded is the law of her being, yet not
for one moment dares she to exhibit too great an alacrity to obey that