concealment as the woman who values her reputation
above her honor. There is no secret a man will guard with
such vigilance as his amours, no copartner in iniquity he
will shield with such fidelity as a paramour. The bandit may
turn state's evidence, and the assassin confess beneath the
noose; but the roue will die protesting that his mistress is
pure as the driven snow.

And yet woman is by nature as true to her rightful lord as
the needle to the magnetic north,--as faithful to her
marriage vows as the stars to their appointed courses.
When a wife "goes astray" the chances are as one to
infinity that the misstep is her husband's fault. Love is the
very life of woman. She can no more exist without it than
the vine can climb heavenward without support,--than it can
blossom and bear fruit without the warm kiss of the summer
sun. Woman's life is a flame that must find an altar upon
which to blaze, a god to glorify; but that sacred fire will
not forever burn 'mid fields of snow nor send up incense
sweet to an unresponsive idol, even though it bears the
name of husband. The man who courts the wife as
assiduously as he did his sweetheart, makes the same
sacrifice to serve her, shows the same appreciation of her
efforts to please him, need never fear a rival. He is lord
paramount of her heart, and, forsaking all others, she will
cleave unto him thro' good and thro' evil, thro' weal and
thro' woe, thro' life unto death. But the man who imagines
his duty done when he provides food, shelter and fine
raiment for the woman he has won; who treats her as if she
were a slave who should feel honored in serving him; who