_Don’t marry a silly girl._ It’s something of an art to select a sensible person, but many are captivated by frivolous sayings and coquettish acts of simpering school-girls and marry them. They make better playmates than wives. They are generally shallow, nonsensical, and superficial. They seldom learn anything; a tittering girl is wearisome in real life. They are ever unstable as water and changeable as wind; get some one that you can rely upon in confidence. _Avoid slovenly dressed girls or heedless men._ Life seems very short sometimes, but if ill-mated it may be a long and tiresome life. A woman with shoes run down, a man with slouched and battered hat, reckless of neatness, will grow worse, and seldom better. Trifling as it may appear, the tidy dress, the tasty every-day apparel, the ladylike appearance, and general style of man or woman, go a long way to form character. Beecher was right in saying that “clothes do not make the man, but they make him look better after he is made.” The same rule is true of women. _Don’t expect too much in marriage._ The story pen-pictures and fashion-plate models of men that we see and read about are always exaggerated. Not one man in a million would equal their description. Men are plain flesh-and-blood creatures; women are not angels. They build their hopes too high who expect otherwise. Take the handsomest person you know and ten years’ wear will dull the edges; and of all faded features, the once very handsome show change the soonest. There are many little odd-faced fellows who grow up to be fine manly men. The growth from boyhood or girlhood to youth, and youth to manhood or womanhood, and so on to old age, is marvellous. It takes a keen sense of foresight to measure the future of many boys and girls by their beginning. There is no rule safer than choosing a good form, a good brain, a good temper, and a good character, and waiting for the other developments. Endure what cannot be cured, and don’t wish your wife or husband were as handsome as some neighbor or as rich as some nabob. Youth and good qualities are riches. It may be he is richer by far than the very one envied. The richest are not always those who own the most--many of these are poor indeed, and often miserable. _Don’t marry a fop._ Vanity in a woman is bad enough, in men it is intolerable! A man-milliner, a namby-pamby female male, a walking model for ready-made furnishing-stores, may think himself exceedingly stunning, but to a real lady or gentleman he is a nonentity. Such husbands never could be satisfied with the admiration you would give them; they would weary your mirrors and try your patience. What are they good for, anyway? There is room for women and room for men, but a half-woman or a half-man is never great. They are not very likely to marry at all, and less likely to make home happy.