fascination. _You_ will get the after-headaches, the complainings and
grumblings, the silence and sulkiness, the weariness and lassitude and
ill-temper that comes as such a relief after working hard all day at
being pleasant!

It is not the people who shine in society, but the people who brighten
up the back parlor; not the people who are charming when they are out,
but the people who are charming when they are in, that are good to
_live_ with. It is not the brilliant men and women, but the simple,
strong, restful men and women, that make the best traveling companions
for the road of life. The men and women who will only laugh as they
put up the umbrella when the rain begins to fall, who will trudge
along cheerfully through the mud and over the stony places--the
comrades who will lay their firm hand on ours and strengthen us when
the way is dark and we are growing weak--the evergreen men and women,
who, like the holly, are at their brightest and best when the blast
blows chilliest--the stanch men and women!

It is a grand thing this stanchness. It is the difference between a
dog and a sheep--between a man and an oyster.

Women, as a rule, are stancher than men. There are women that you
feel you could rely upon to the death. But very few men indeed have
this dog-like virtue. Men, taking them generally, are more like cats.
You may live with them and call them yours for twenty years, but you
can never feel _quite_ sure of them. You never know exactly what they
are thinking of. You never feel easy in your mind as to the result of
the next-door neighbor's laying down a Brussels carpet in his kitchen.

We have no school for the turning-out of stanch men in this nineteenth