"Even in the happiest choice whom fav'ring Heaven Has equal love and easy fortune given; Think not, the husband gained, that all is done, The prize of happiness must still be won; And oft the careless find it to their cost; The lover in the husband may be lost; The graces might alone his heart allure; They and the virtues meeting must secure." According to Dean Swift, "the reason why so few marriages are happy is because young women spend their time in making nets, not in making cages." Certainly a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and girls are quite justified in trying in all ways, consistent with modesty and self-respect, to net husbands. Still, she is the really fine woman who can not merely net the affections of a husband during the honeymoon, but who can cage and keep them throughout a long married life. Only the other day, a man told me that after forty years of married life, he loved his wife almost better than the day they were married. We are not told that Alexander the Great, after conquering the world, kept his conquest very long, but this wife kept her conquest forty years. Woman in her time has been called upon to endure a great deal of definition. She had been described as, "A good idea--spoiled!" This may be true of one who can only make nets, but it certainly is not true of a cage-maker. Always do-- "Her air, her smile, her motions, tell Of womanly completeness; A music as of household songs Is in her voice of sweetness. Flowers spring to blossom where she walks The careful ways of duty; The hard stiff lines of life with her Are flowing curves of beauty." Men are often as easily caught as birds, but as difficult to keep. If the wife cannot make her home bright and happy, so that it shall be the cleanest, sweetest, cheerfullest place that her husband can find refuge in--a retreat from the toils and troubles of the outer world--then God help the poor man, for he is virtually homeless! In the home more than anywhere else order is Heaven's first law. It is the duty of a wife to sweetly order her cage so that it may be clean, neat, and free from muddle. Method is the oil that makes the wheels of the domestic machine run easily. The mistress of a home who desires order, and the tranquillity that comes of order, must insist on the application of method to every branch and department of the household work. She must rise and breakfast early and give her orders early. Doing much before twelve o'clock gives her a command of the day.