sensible of their need.

* * *

A girl's first engagement is peculiarly sweet: long does she remember,
long meditatively dwell upon, its pettiest incidents. For, if any man
dared give utterance to so outrageous an assumption,

The emoluments of a promise to marry are as sweet to the donatress as
undoubtedly they are to the accepter.--And why not, pray? Nevertheless,

A certain practical sobriety supervenes upon subsequent affairs of the
heart. For

The recurrence of love is apt to spoil its romance. And yet--and yet--

It is a question which woman after woman has put herself, in vain,
whether 't would have been wiser to have accepted and retained the
romantic love of unthinking youth, or to have waited for the more sober
affection of the years of discretion.

Perhaps a girl hardly knows all that is meant by that thing called "love"
or what is entailed upon her by that thing called an "engagement". She
has played with love so much, that when a real and serious love is
offered her, she still thinks it the toy that amused her. But

Soon enough does the man, if he is earnest--and a man never proposes
unless he is in earnest--enlighten the girl of his choice: for

To a man, love never is a toy--though mere lust may be: