“There you go again, Fannie! measuring the world with your six-inch rule. If the world don’t square with your measurements, so much the worse for the world. Women and men do not create themselves, nor the motives that govern them. A motive does not determine human action because it is weak, or ought to be weak, according to your measuring; it controls from the mathematical law that the strongest _must_ prevail. Suppose the attracting power to be two and the resisting force one; you can tell beforehand what the result will be; therefore the folly of blaming in such a case.” “I might pity a woman who listens to the promptings of an illegal affection, but I certainly should never admire her. How could I admire one so weak as not to know that by the very fact of listening to improper declarations of love, she always wins contempt, even from the man himself.” “Not always—not by any means always. If I should love a married woman, and she should listen to my telling her of it, I should by no means despise her. I should despise her if she insulted me by supposing I wished her to do anything base or unwomanly.” “Oh, you! You are an anomaly. You know I always count you out, when speaking of general principles. The Lord only knows how far a woman might go without being ‘unwomanly’ in your eyes.” “Ah!” responded the doctor, with a peculiar accent, which was his way of declaring that there was no more to be said upon the subject. On the day preceding the important event, Leila and Linnie were running here and there in a state of great excitement. They were for once thoroughly interested in everything, and especially in their own toilettes, if not in the bride’s, for they were to be two of the four bride’s-maids. Mrs. Forest had determined that everything relating to this event should be “respectable,” and she always pronounced the word with severe certainty of what it meant. To be sure, to some persons the term is vague and even unpleasant; but these were all ill-regulated minds, according to Mrs. Forest, and she pitied them. After breakfast, Clara made a long visit to Susie, cheered her by earnest protestations of continued friendship, and by promises to write often. The pretty baby was duly petted and caressed, and invited to “kiss auntie”—words of recognition always infinitely sweet to Susie’s ear. The kissing consisted in the baby’s smobbing its uneasy little wet mouth over Clara’s face; not a very satisfactory operation, one would think; but all the tender grace of the woman that had been developed by Clara’s brave friendship for poor Susie, and by the deep love she cherished for Albert, shone through the halo of happiness surrounding the brow of the morrow’s bride.