There is another kind of couple who coddle themselves, and who do
so at a cheaper rate and on more spare diet, because they are
niggardly and parsimonious; for which reason they are kind enough
to coddle their visitors too. It is unnecessary to describe them,
for our readers may rest assured of the accuracy of these general
principles:- that all couples who coddle themselves are selfish and
slothful,--that they charge upon every wind that blows, every rain
that falls, and every vapour that hangs in the air, the evils which
arise from their own imprudence or the gloom which is engendered in
their own tempers,--and that all men and women, in couples or
otherwise, who fall into exclusive habits of self-indulgence, and
forget their natural sympathy and close connexion with everybody
and everything in the world around them, not only neglect the first
duty of life, but, by a happy retributive justice, deprive
themselves of its truest and best enjoyment.



THE OLD COUPLE



They are grandfather and grandmother to a dozen grown people and
have great-grandchildren besides; their bodies are bent, their hair
is grey, their step tottering and infirm. Is this the lightsome
pair whose wedding was so merry, and have the young couple indeed
grown old so soon!

It seems but yesterday--and yet what a host of cares and griefs are
crowded into the intervening time which, reckoned by them,