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"Marriage is to a woman at once the happiest and the 

 saddest event of her life ; it is the promise of future bliss, 

 raised on the death of all present enjoyment. She quits her 

 home, her parents, her companions, her occupations, her 

 amusements, every thing on which she has hitherto depen- 

 ded for comfort, for affection, for kindness, for pleasure. 

 The parents by whose advice she has been guided, the sister 

 to whom she has dared impart every embryo thought or 

 feeling, the brother who has played with her, by turns the 

 counsellor and the counselled, and the younger children to 

 whom she has hitherto been the mother and the playmate, 

 all are to be forsaken at one fell stroke ; every former tie is 

 loosened, the spring of every hope and action is to be chan- 

 ged ; and yet she flies with joy into the untrodden path be- 

 fore her ; buoyed up with the confidence of requited love, 

 she bids a fond and grateful adieu to the life that is past, 

 and turns with excited hopes and joyous anticipation of the 

 happiness to come. Then wo to him who can blight such 

 fair hopes who can treacherously lure such a heart from 

 its peaceful enjoyment, and the watchful protection of home 

 who can coward-like, break the illusions that have won 

 her, and destroy the confidence which love had inspired. 

 Wo to him who has too early withdrawn the tender plant 

 from the props and stays of moral discipline in which she 

 has been nurtured, and yet make no effort to supply their 

 place; for on him be the responsibility of her errors on 

 him who has first taught her, by his example, to grow care- 

 less of her duty, and then exposed her with a weakened spirit, 

 and unsatisfied heart, to the wide storms and the wily 

 temptations of a vicious world." Ladies' Companion. 



