loving, and unquestionably it is pleasant to know and see that they
are so; but there is a time for all things, and the couple who
happen to be always in a loving state before company, are well-nigh
intolerable.

And in taking up this position we would have it distinctly
understood that we do not seek alone the sympathy of bachelors, in
whose objection to loving couples we recognise interested motives
and personal considerations. We grant that to that unfortunate
class of society there may be something very irritating,
tantalising, and provoking, in being compelled to witness those
gentle endearments and chaste interchanges which to loving couples
are quite the ordinary business of life. But while we recognise
the natural character of the prejudice to which these unhappy men
are subject, we can neither receive their biassed evidence, nor
address ourself to their inflamed and angered minds. Dispassionate
experience is our only guide; and in these moral essays we seek no
less to reform hymeneal offenders than to hold out a timely warning
to all rising couples, and even to those who have not yet set forth
upon their pilgrimage towards the matrimonial market.

Let all couples, present or to come, therefore profit by the
example of Mr. and Mrs. Leaver, themselves a loving couple in the
first degree.

Mr. and Mrs. Leaver are pronounced by Mrs. Starling, a widow lady
who lost her husband when she was young, and lost herself about the
same-time--for by her own count she has never since grown five
years older--to be a perfect model of wedded felicity. 'You would
suppose,' says the romantic lady, 'that they were lovers only just