"There goes me but for the grace of God!" "What, is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?" No! not a dog, but a young man or a young woman who is liable to forget that "small habits well pursued betimes may reach the dignity of crimes." If you do not measure your liquor with as much care as strong medicine; if you are not on your guard against those drinking habits of society and business which first draw, then drag, and then haul--beware lest tyrant custom make you a slave to what has been called "the most authentic incarnation of the principle of evil." CHAPTER XII. FURNISHING. "By wisdom is a house built; by understanding it is established; and by knowledge the chambers are filled with all pleasant and precious treasures."--_Solomon's Practical Wisdom._ "We cannot arrest sunsets nor carve mountains, but we may turn every English home, if we choose, into a picture which shall be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed."--_Ruskin._ A condition of pleasantness in a house has a real power in refining and raising the characters of its inmates; so home should not only be a haven of rest, peace, and sympathy, but should have an element of beauty in all its details. Ugliness and discomfort blunt the sensibilities and lower the spirits. D'Israeli said, "Happiness is atmosphere," and from this point of view a few words about furnishing may not be out of place in our inquiry as to how to be happy though married. Certainly the fitting up and arranging of a home will not appear unimportant to those who think with Dr. Johnson that it is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible. "Pound St. Paul's church into atoms and consider any single atom; it is, to be sure, good for nothing; but put these atoms together, and you have St. Paul's church. So it is with human felicity, which is made up of many ingredients, each of which may be shown to be very insignificant." The expense of furnishing is often a source of considerable anxiety to young people about to marry. We think, however, that this matrimonial care is, or should be, much more lightly felt than in past years. Competition has made furniture cheaper, and it is now considered "bad form" to crowd rooms or to have in them the large heavy things that were so expensive. Elegance displayed in little things is the order of the day. A few light chairs of different sizes and shapes, a small lounge, one or two little tables, the floor polished round the edges and covered in the centre with a square of carpet, or, if the whole room be stained, with Oriental rugs where required; the windows hung with some kind of light drapery--what more do newly-married people require in their drawing-room? Oh! we have forgotten the piano, and we suppose it is inevitable, but it can easily be hired.