LONDON T FISHER UNWIN 26 Paternoster Square 1887 TO THOSE BRAVE MEN AND WOMEN WHO HAVE VENTURED, OR WHO INTEND TO VENTURE, INTO THAT STATE WHICH IS "A BLESSING TO A FEW, A CURSE TO MANY, AND A GREAT UNCERTAINTY TO ALL," THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED IN ADMIRATION OF THEIR COURAGE. PREFACE. Most of the books intended to give "counsel and ghostly strength" to newly-married people are so like a collection of sermons that they are given away rather than read. When writing the following pages I have remembered that the only kind of vice all people agree to shun is--advice, and have endeavoured to hide the pill. This is my excuse if at times I seem to fall into anecdotage. One day two birds were busy building their nest in Luther's garden. Observing that they were often scared while committing their petty thefts by the passers to and fro, the Doctor exclaimed, "Oh, poor little birds! fly not away; I wish you well with all my heart, if you would only believe me!" If any birds of Paradise, or, to speak plainly, newly-married people, are a little scared by the title of this book or by any of its contents, I assure them that, while trying to place before them the responsibilities they have undertaken, I wish them well with all my heart, and take great interest in their nest-building. To ask critics to be merciful at a time when new books are so numerous that our eyes ache with reading and our fingers with turning the pages, would be to ask them not to do their duty. They are the policemen of literature, and they are bound to make bad and worthless books "move on" out of the way of their betters. I can only hope that if any notice this little venture they may not feel obliged to "crush" it "among the stoure," as the Ayrshire ploughman had to crush the "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower." I take this opportunity of thanking M. H., my best friend, without whose help and sympathy this book would be a worse one than it is, and my life much more unsatisfactory. Part of the first chapter was published in _Chambers's Journal_, and I am indebted to _Cassell's Saturday Journal_ for two anecdotes. I now tender my best thanks to the proprietors of those periodicals for permission to reprint the passages. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. The "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower," as I called this book when it first made its appearance, has not been crushed with the ploughshare of criticism "among the stoure." On the contrary, it has been so well received that I am full of gratitude to the reviewers who recommended it and to the public who bought it. One critic suggested that to make the work complete a chapter on second marriages should be added. My reason for not writing such a chapter is that, not having myself been as yet often married, I did not presume to give advice to widows and widowers who have their own experience to guide them.