That large numbers of daintily-bred women should be condemned to such an existence is the strongest possible argument in favour of the establishment of two French institutions, viz., strictly limited families and the system of _dots_. Of late years, the former has been largely adopted in England, and until the latter custom also becomes the rule, the Institution for Encouraging Matrimony could take the matter in hand. Two or three unusually sensible philanthropists have already given their attention to this important subject, but any movement of this nature at once assumes too much the aspect of a matrimonial agency to be approved by the class for whose welfare it is destined. However, the I.F.E.M. would have to deal with this obstacle and conceal its real intentions under another name. I am sure if its object were sufficiently wrapped-up that refined men and women could take advantage of it without loss of self-respect--the response to such an institution by both sexes would be enormous. A club, ostensibly for promoting social intercourse, might be the solution, and subscription dances, concerts, organised excursions would not be difficult to arrange, and would make a source of brightness and interest in many drab lives. Country branches could be started if the thing proved a success. One constantly sees in the newspapers proof of the fact that there are a very large number of middle-class young men able and anxious to marry, who lack feminine acquaintances of their own social standing from whom to make a choice. Unfortunate _mésalliances_ are often the result, and it seems to me a sad and wasteful thing that these uxoriously-inclined men cannot be brought into contact with some of the thousands of young women whose lives are passed in uncongenial toil and who are eating out their hearts in their anxiety for a home and a husband of their own. Until the I.F.E.M. becomes fact, here is splendid work ready to hand for a philanthropist of infinite tact, and large, sympathetic heart. What a chance to add to the sum of human joy! What a rich reward for the expenditure of but a little time and money! IV THE TRAGEDY OF THE UNDESIRED ‘So man and woman will keep their trust, Till the very Springs of the Sea run dust. ‘Yea, each with the other will lose and win, For the Strife of Love’s the abysmal Strife, And the Word of Love is the Word of Life. ‘And they that go with the Word unsaid, Though they seem of the living, are damned and dead.’ --W. E. HENLEY.