io A Century of Family Letters [CHAP, i 



which give everyone more pleasing looks, because you 

 know you have married a man who is above caring for 

 such little things. No man is above caring for them, for 

 they feel the effect imperceptibly to themselves. I have 

 seen it even in my half -blind husband. The taste of 

 men is almost universally good in all that relates to 

 dress dec-oration and ornament. They are themselves 

 little aware of it, because they are seldom called to judge 

 of it, but let them choose and it is always simple and 

 handsome, so let those be your piedestals. You have given 

 me no intimation when the wedding is to take place, if 

 I had a mind to go to it. Yet that is always the first 

 question put after an information of that sort. 



A match here which had set everybody talking, has 

 just been broken off in a way which has set them talking 

 still more, and which I, worldly as I am, find quite sublime. 

 One of our oldest English baronets, with a show place for 

 beauty in England, with 30,000 per aim., fell in love with 

 a daughter of one of our pasteurs, with whom the baronet 

 had been en pension. He had neither father nor mother to 

 consult, but Mons. Eymer, the girl's father, refused his 

 consent for two years, saying his daughter was too young. 

 This autumn Sir J. Thussel, as far as I can make out the 

 name pronounced by a foreigner, returned triumphant to 

 claim his promise and his bride, preceded by a magnificent 

 suite of diamonds and other magnificent gifts. The day 

 was fixed, but Mile. Eymer, only 17, became more and 

 more sad. At last she told her father, " I have been 

 dazzled by the offer, but I do not love him; I have never 

 known a happy moment since I accepted him. I feel all 

 my happiness remains in my own country and my own 

 family. I therefore retract my promise and will not go 

 with him." Her father represented to her that she must 

 never hope to marry another, that affairs between them 

 had gone too far, she had been too long considered the 

 wife of another for any Genevais ever to think of her, but 

 to do as she pleased. She said she was quite aware of the 

 truth of what he said, but if she never quitted the parental 



