To love faithfully is to love with singleness of heart and sameness of purpose, through all the temptations which society presents, and under all the assaults of vanity both from within and without. It is so pleasant for a woman to be admired and so soothing to her to be loved, that the grand trial of female constancy is to refrain from adding one more conquest to her triumphs when it is evidently in her power to do so. Obviously her chief protection is to restrain the first indefinite thoughts which, if allowed to gain clearness and swiftness, may lead her fancy astray. Even the ideas which commonly float through the mind of woman are so rapid and so indistinctly shaped, that when the door is opened to such thoughts as these they pour in like a torrent. Then first will arise a sudden perception of deficiency in the object of her love, or some additional impression of his unkindness or neglect, with comparisons between him and other men, and regret that he has not some quality which they possess; sadness under a conviction of her future destiny, pining for sympathy under that sadness, and, lastly, the commencement of some other intimacy, which at first she has no idea of converting into love. Such is the manner in which, in thousands of cases, the faithfulness of woman's love has been destroyed, and destroyed far more effectually than if assailed by an open, and, apparently, more formidable foe. And what a wreck has followed! For when woman loses her integrity and her self-respect, she is indeed pitiable and degraded. While her faithfulness remains unshaken, it is true she may, and probably will, have much to suffer; but let her destiny in this life be what it may, she will walk through the world with a firm and upright step. To live solitary may be the cost of her noble behaviour; but often this solitude will represent a decoration more splendid than any to be received from the hands of queens and emperors. I may be accused of a cold philosophy in speaking of such consolation being efficacious under the suffering which arises from unkindness and desertion; but who would not rather be the one to bear injury than the one to inflict it? The very act of bearing it meekly and reverently, as from the hand of God, has a purifying and solemnising effect upon the soul, which the faithless and the fickle never can experience. Dudley Chisholm sat before the fire in his room until the dawn, trying to unravel a thousand knots, his mind filled with sad memories and with bitter regrets in plenty.