What more delectable to a girl than to have captured and kept a real man?
This flatters her, uplifts her, makes of her a woman at once: she holds
her head higher she carries herself with an air; she shows off her
capture. Besides, also,

The engaged girl is looked up to by her compeers, is congratulated y her
elders. Even if she keeps the engagement secret, these compeers and
congratulatresses do not (sometimes, alas! To her detriment).--In
addition to all this,

What delight so unique as the preparation of the trousseau! 239
Trousseau!--'T is a name of mystical import to man.

A woman's trousseau is symbol of two things--and perhaps dimly indicative
of a third:

(i) it proves--what needs no proof--that, such is the unselfish nature
of Love, never can it give enough, never enhance too much the gifts it
gives. Accordingly the bride goes to the man appareled and bedecked to
the best of her ability;

(ii) It is a subtle tribute to the sensibility of man, of the man in
love, who is stimulated and pleased by dainty, it may be diaphanous,
raiment. Lastly, since even that supernal thing Love is not unconcerned
with matters practical,

(iii) It bespeaks as prophetic suspicion of the little fact that perhaps
it is well to go to her husband's home abundantly provided with dainty
raiment, inasmuch as the man not in love is not always so delicately