When custom has made familiar the charms that are most attractive,
when youthful freshness has died away, and with the brightness of
domestic life, more and more shadows have mingled, then, Louise, and
not till then, can the wife say of the husband, 'He is worthy of
love;' then, first, the husband say of the wife, 'She blooms in
imperishable beauty.' But, truly, on the day before marriage, such
assertions sound laughable to me."

"I understand you, dear aunt. You would say that our mutual virtues
alone can in later years give us worth for each other. But is not he
to whom I am to belong--for of myself I can boast nothing but the
best intentions--is he not the worthiest, noblest of all the young
men of the city? Blooms not in his soul, every virtue that tends to
make life happy?"

"My child," replied her aunt, "I grant it. Virtues bloom in thee as
well as in him; I can say this to thee without flattery. But, dear
heart, they bloom only, and are not yet ripened beneath the sun's
heat and the shower. No blossoms deceive the expectations more than
these. We can never tell in what soil they have taken root. Who
knows the concealed depths of the heart?"

"Ah, dear aunt, you really frighten me."

"So much the better Louise. Such fear is right; such fear is as it
should be on the evening before marriage. I love thee tenderly, and
will, therefore, declare all my thoughts on this subject without
disguise. I am not as yet an old aunt. At seven-and-twenty years,
one still looks forward into life with pleasure, the world still
presents a bright side to us. I have an excellent husband. I am