also are under the slavery of habit. I have seen with delight their
poetic impulses. A sister is the fairest ideal, and how nobly
Wordsworth, and even Byron, have written of a sister!

There is no sweeter sight than to see a father with his little
daughter. Very vulgar men become refined to the eye when leading a
little girl by the hand. At that moment, the right relation between
the sexes seems established, and you feel as if the man would aid in
the noblest purpose, if you ask him in behalf of his little daughter.
Once, two fine figures stood before me, thus. The father of very
intellectual aspect, his falcon eye softened by affection as he looked
down on his fair child; she the image of himself, only more graceful
and brilliant in expression. I was reminded of Southey's Kehama; when,
lo, the dream was rudely broken! They were talking of education, and
he said,

"I shall not have Maria brought too forward. If she knows too much,
she will never find a husband; superior women hardly ever can."

"Surely," said his wife, with a blush, "you wish Maria to be as good
and wise as she can, whether it will help her to marriage or not."

"No," he persisted, "I want her to have a sphere and a home, and some
one to protect her when I am gone."

It was a trifling incident, but made a deep impression. I felt that
the holiest relations fail to instruct the unprepared and perverted
mind. If this man, indeed, could have looked at it on the other side,
he was the last that would have been willing to have been taken
himself for the home and protection he could give, but would have been