But it cannot always be so, for in spite of all a loving heart can do there are brutes--we won't call them men--we won't own them as belonging to our ranks, but drum them out--brutes, before whom the jewel of a true wife's love is as the pearl cast before swine. But, there; leave we them to their wallow, for it is defiling paper to quote their evil ways. What is a wife? A burden? a care? Oh no, she is what we choose to make her: a constant spring of bright refreshing water, ready for us at all times during our journey through life--a confidant--one we can turn to for help when stricken down by some disease, or the wounds met with in the battle of life, ready to smooth our pillow, and cool the weary, aching head. There; when looking upon some of the poor, dejected, neglected, half-forsaken women we see around, it is enough to make a man's heart swell with indignation and scorn for those who have cast aside so great a treasure, and made of it a slave. There are faults enough on both sides, but many a happy home, many a simple domestic hearth, has been opened out or swept and garnished ready for the reception of a demon of discord, whose web once spun over the place, can perhaps never be torn away. But turn we again to the hopeful side of the question. Let the sun of your love shine forth, oh woman, brightly upon your home, however bare, and fight out the good fight with undying faith. And young wife, you of a few days, weeks, months, remember the first stray hair. CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. A PIECE OF ASSURANCE. Being only a quiet, country-bumpkin sort of personage, it seems but reasonable that I should ask what can there be in me that people should take such intense interest in my life being insured. If such eagerness were shown by, say one's wife, or any very near relative, one might turn suspicious, and fancy they had leanings towards the tea-spoons, sugar-tongs, and silver watch, and any other personal property that, like Captain Cuttle, one might feel disposed to make over "jintly" in some other direction. Consequently, one would be afterwards on the look-out for modern Borgiaism, and take homoeopathic doses of Veratria, Brucine, etc, etc, by way of antidote for any unpleasant symptoms likely to manifest themselves in the system. But then it is not from near relatives that such earnestness proceeds, but from utter strangers. It is hard to say how many attempts I have had made upon my life insurance--I will not use the word assurance, though it exists to a dreadful extent in the myrmidons of the pushing offices--at home, abroad, in the retirement of one's study, in the lecture-hall of a town, always the same.