But even ordinary happy and sensible people, who have married for love, and who honestly desire to make their home as far as possible an earthly paradise, cannot escape the inevitable strain of this first year of married life. To begin with, it is a trite saying that you cannot know a person until you live with him or her; and people come to years of maturity have formed habits of thought and action which may, in some cases must, clash with those of the other with whom they are brought into contact every day. Contact, too, from which it is impossible to escape. You meet in business and society many persons with whom you find it difficult to agree, whose opinions jar upon you, and who rub you the wrong way, and you find it irksome enough to meet such a person even occasionally; imagine, then, what it would be like were you placed in, or forced to endure, his or her companionship every day. Yet such is the experience of some married persons, who have rushed into matrimony without due knowledge or consideration. But leaving these extreme cases out of the question, meanwhile let us think of the test of perpetual companionship as applied to an ordinary pair who enter on married life with the ordinary prospect of happiness. During the days of courtship and engagement they, of course, saw a good deal of each other, and got to know, as they thought, every peculiarity and characteristic. Sometimes, even, they had quarrels arising out of trifles, foolish misunderstandings which caused serious heart-burnings, none of which, however, were of long duration; and the making up was invariably sweet enough to atone for the temporary misery, and help to make up the poetry of life. But the lovers' quarrel and the quarrel matrimonial are entirely different; and while the former is usually but a passing breeze, the latter is more serious, and to be avoided almost at any cost. We want fair winds always, if possible, to speed our matrimonial barque; we do not wish its timbers shaken by the whirlwind of passion. We have all our little peculiarities, excrescences of character which are apt to rub roughly against our neighbours' sensibilities, let us not, when feeling these drawbacks, forget our own. We are so apt to magnify in others, and to minimise in ourselves. It is easy to be on good behaviour with a person we only see occasionally, even every day, so long as the cares and worries of life are in the background, never obtruded, however heavily they press, because these short moments are too precious to be clouded in any way. It is easy to be unselfish for a little while; to bow, now and then, absolutely to another's will; to suffer discomfort once a week, if necessary, to make a dear one comfortable. All such little sacrifices during courting days seem but a privilege, and make up the poetry of that happy time.