Of course no one believes that it is a wife's duty to obey when her husband wishes her to act contrary to the dictates of conscience. As little is she expected to conform to a standard of obedience and service such as was laid down in a conversation overheard between two children who were playing on the sands together. Small boy to little girl: "Do you wish to be my wife?" Little girl, after reflection; "Yes." Small boy: "Then pull off my boots." We all rejoice in the fact that woman's rights are very different now from what they used to be, at least in Russia, where, Dr. Lansdell tells us, anciently at a wedding the bridegroom took to church a whip, and in one part of the ceremony lightly applied it to the bride's back, in token that she was to be in subjection. Is there not still, however, much truth in the old couplet: "Man, love thy wife; thy husband, wife, obey. Wives are our heart; we should be head alway"? On a great many points concerning the pecuniary or other interests of the family, the husband will usually be the wisest, and may most properly be treated as the senior or acting partner in the firm. "The good wife," says Fuller, "commandeth her husband in any equal matter, by constantly obeying him. It was always observed, that what the English gained of the French in battle by valour, the French regained of the English in cunning by treaties. So if the husband should chance by his power in his passion to prejudice his wife's right, she wisely knoweth by compounding and complying, to recover and rectify it again." This is very much what the well-known lines in "Hiawatha" teach-- "As unto the bow the cord is, So unto the man is woman; Though she bends him, she obeys him; Though she draws him, yet she follows; Useless each without the other!" But indeed it is a sign of something being wrong between married people, when the question which of the two shall be subject to the other ever arises. It will never do so when both parties love as they ought, for then the struggle will be not who shall command and control, but who shall serve and yield. As Chaucer says-- "When mastery cometh, then sweet Love anon, Flappeth his nimble wings and soon away is flown." CHAPTER XI. "DRIVE GENTLY OVER THE STONES!" "It were better to meet some dangers half-way, though they come nothing near."--_Bacon._ "Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wreck'd."--_Milton._ "Drive gently over the stones!" This piece of advice, which is frequently given to inexperienced whips, may be suggested metaphorically to the newly-married. On the road upon which they have entered there are stony places, which, if not carefully driven over, will almost certainly upset the domestic coach. To accompany one's wife harmoniously on an Irish car is easy compared to the task of accompanying her over these stones on the domestic car.