“And, as I am not rich, as I have nothing at all of my own, no one will ever marry me for anything else but affection. And, as I find it so sweet to depend on my dear father, who loves me, I shall find it very sweet also to depend on another who shall love me—ah! if only half as well as he does!” “I hope you will remain with your father, my darling. Fathers may be trusted with their daughters—sometimes. The same cannot be said of lovers or husbands,” said Britomarte, earnestly, and laying her hand caressing upon the bright head that leaned against her bosom. “Yes, I hope you will never commit that spiritual suicide of which I spoke.” Erminie gently lifted her head from her queen’s bosom—every motion of the fair girl was gentleness itself—again she hesitated, and the bloom wavered on her face and settled into an intense blush, as she softly said: “I do not agree with you, dear Britomarte. I cannot. Nor do I like discussions on this subject. It seems sacrilegious to speak so irreverently of the holiest mysteries in nature, for such, indeed, I deem love and marriage; and it seems like unveiling the holy of holies in one’s own sacred bosom to give one’s thoughts and feelings about them. Still, when that, which to me is a divine truth, is assailed even by you, dear Britomarte, I must defend it, if necessary, by laying bare my own heart.” “Defend it, then, my love. Come on! I shall mind your fencing about as much as I should the pecking of an excited turtle dove,” said the amazon, with an indulgent smile. Yet again the bloom wavered and flickered on Erminie’s sensitive cheek as she murmured, softly: “I have been thinking of all you have said this morning; I have been listening to my heart, and it has told me this: To lose self in the one great vital love a true wife finds in a true husband, is not moral suicide, as you say, but the passing into another life—a double life—deeper, sweeter, more intense, and more satisfying than any known alone. To be content to be guided by his wisdom, and upheld by his strength, and comforted by his love—to have no will but his will, which she makes her own—this is not to be a nonentity, or weak, or silly, or childish, but to be identical with the husband’s greater life—to be wise, strong, womanly. She passes into his life, becomes part and parcel of it. In losing herself she finds herself; in giving herself away she receives herself again—transfigured! Oh! Britomarte, I am not intellectual like you, but I do know, because my heart surely tells me, that the true wife and the true husband are one—one being on this earth, as they will be one angel in heaven,” said the gentle girl, forgetting her timidity in her enthusiasm. “Bosh!” cried Elfrida Fielding, in disgust, tearing and throwing away the withes of grass she had been winding around her fingers, emblematically of her method of managing natural enemies. “Bah!” yawned Alberta Goldsborough, shrugging her shoulders.