It is a great mistake to suppose that a woman with no heart will be an easy creditor in the exchange of affection. There is not on earth a more merciless exactor of love from others than a thoroughly selfish woman; and the more unlovely she grows, the more jealously and scrupulously she exacts love to the uttermost farthing. PALMETTO LEAVES. [Sidenote: Character.] A flower is commonly thought the emblem of a woman; and a woman is generally thought of as something sweet, clinging, tender, and perishable. But there are women flowers that correspond to the forest magnolia,—high and strong, with a great hold of root and a great spread of branches; and whose pulsations of heart and emotion come forth like these silver lilies that illuminate the green shadows of the magnolia forests. POGANUC PEOPLE. [Sidenote: “Turn about.”] “Oh, land o’ Goshen, Dolly, what do you mind them boys for?” said Nabby. “Boys is mostly hateful when girls is little; but we take our turns by and by,” she said, with a complacent twinkle of her brown eyes. “I make them stand ’round, I bet ye, and you will when you get older.” MY WIFE AND I. [Sidenote: Woman’s spiritual power.] My mother was one of that class of women whose power on earth seems to be only the greater for being a spiritual and invisible one. The control of such women over men is like that of the soul over the body. The body is visible, forceful, obtrusive, self-asserting; the soul, invisible, sensitive, yet with a subtile and vital power which constantly gains control, and holds every inch that it gains. * * * * * [Sidenote: Orderliness.] Like a true little woman, she seemed to have nerves through all her clothes, that kept them in order. * * * * * [Sidenote: Woman and Christianity.] The motherly instinct is in the hearts of all true women, and sooner or later the true wife becomes a mother to her husband; she guides him, cares for him, teaches him, and catechizes him, all in the nicest way possible.... As for the soul-life, I believe it is woman who holds faith in the world,—it is woman behind the wall, casting oil on the fire that burns brighter and brighter, while the devil pours on water; and you’ll never get Christianity out of the world while there’s a woman in it. WE AND OUR NEIGHBORS. [Sidenote: Woman’s mission.] “That’s what you women are for—at least such women as you. It’s your mission to interpret differing natures—to bind, and blend, and unite.” * * * * * [Sidenote: Real conversation.] That fine, skillful faculty of analysis and synthesis which forms the distinctive interest of feminine conversation. CHAPTER IV. CHILDREN. THE MINISTER’S WOOING. [Sidenote: The odd one.]