In the days which precede marriage, everything relating to it has been idealized, and the awaking to the knowledge that ideality and reality are two very different things, will come to you with a severe shock, unless you bring to the issue all the good common sense and womanliness you possess. The rose-color which everything assumed in courtship, is now toned down to a more sober hue, and it is yours to see that it becomes not too sombre; but rather mingle with it enough of the vermilion and the rose to brighten the entire day of married life, and glorify its sunset. After all, you have only reached the haven towards which your bark has been tending since your earliest recollection. Every day of your girlhood life has had in it some hope, some confident thought, some sweet vision, of the days when you would be a woman, and some one, the only one in all the world for you, would come a-wooing and prove to you surely that your life was planned as the complement of his; that the home he intends to set up shall be perfect only when you consent to be its queen; that his life, in short, is only waiting for its fulfilment—which really means fillfullment when you shall come in to fill it full. Should your love compel consent to this, and should you have courage, and unselfishness, and power, and real character, and self-abnegation, and hopefulness, and help-fullness, and uplifting patience, and hidden leadership sufficient, you will make of the two-in-one life a beautiful strength that shall bless the world. Now you have come to the realization of these dreams, and never for a moment must your courage falter, never for a moment your ideals be lowered. If perchance some of you have come to wifehood uninformed upon all the questions of girlhood and womanhood, which will prepare you for the sacred duties and responsibilities before you, it is not yet too late to learn; although this disadvantage confronts you, that very much must be crowded into a short space of time, and that many experiences will overtake you before you are prepared for them. Even at this do not be discouraged. Everything is possible to her who wills, and if you will to prepare yourself better for wifehood and motherhood, even at so late a day, the way is open. By enquiry you will find many books to help you, and many motherly women, who, having learned in the dear school of experience, are fitted to teach you the pitfalls you must avoid, and encourage you with promises of success, if you are patient. Perhaps some of you approach wifehood with a dread of its cares and duties. Wrongly taught, or wrongly thinking, you have a nameless dread that you cannot shake off, and it distresses you. There is nothing to alarm you. Physically, woman as created, answers the question of fitness for the work laid upon her. Let us consider a little, her peculiar adaptation, and the suitability of each part to the purpose intended by the all-wise Creator.