There are such things as love-letters between married people. Here are two extracts from one written by Caroline Perthes to her absent husband: "I have just looked out into the night, and thought of thee. It is a glorious night, and the stars are glittering above me, and if in thy carriage one appears to thee brighter than the rest, think that it showers down upon thee love and kindness from me, and no sadness, for I am not now unhappy when you are absent. Yet I am certain that this does not proceed from any diminution of affection. If I could only show how I feel towards you, it would give you joy. After all I may say or write, it is still unexpressed, and far short of the living love which I carry in my heart. If you could apprehend me without words, you would understand me better. The children do their best, but you are always the same, and have ever the first place in my heart. Thank God, my Perthes, neither time nor circumstances can ever affect my love to you; my affection knows neither youth nor age, and is eternal." If love never survived matrimony would Mrs. Carlyle have written a letter like the following which she did to a friend who made a special effort to console her soon after the death of her mother?--"Only think of my husband, too, having given me a little present! he who never attends to such nonsenses as birthdays, and who dislikes nothing in the world so much as going into a shop to buy anything, even his own trousers and coats; so that, to the consternation of cockney tailors, I am obliged to go about them. Well, he actually risked himself in a jeweller's shop, and bought me a very nice smelling-bottle! I cannot tell you how _wae_ his little gift made me, as well as glad; it was the first thing of the kind he ever gave me in his life. In great matters he is always kind and considerate? but these little attentions, which we women attach so much importance to, he was never in the habit of rendering to any one; his up-bringing, and the severe turn of mind he has from nature, had alike indisposed him towards them. And now the desire to replace to me the irreplaceable makes him as good in little things as he used to be in great."