THE COUNTRY GIRL. 
BY GEORGS W. BUNGAY. 
Sweet maiden, whose magnetic eyes 
Out-glow the light of morning skies; 
Down in their dreamy depths I sco 
A soul which sees the soul in me. 
Thy voice is like the liquid note 
Which warbles from the wild bird’s throat? 
TAke songs of the bright oriole 
Thy sweet songs touch and thrill the soul. 
I grasp thy hand wlHBie’er we moot, 
And In its palm I feel the heat 
Of thy young heart, so soft and pure,— 
Thy heart is Heaven in miniature. 
I take this wreath of evergreen, 
Which emblems thy young life, 1 ween. 
And with Us leaves so fresh and fair, 
I’ll twine a garland for thy hair. 
And crown thee queen of lake and hill, 
And queen of hearts that love thee sti'.l; 
May no pool’ mortal run the day 
Which saw thee crowned with sovereign sway. 
Thy fair companions are the (lowers, 
(jay children of the sun and showers; 
Their innocence and beauty sweet 
Blend in thy nature where they meet. 
Thy home Is where the crystal lakes 
Pulse on green shores, nnd morning breaks 
On wooded hill and valleys sweet,— 
A footstool at the Father’s feet. 
Life is a boon to mortals given, 
A wing to lift us up to Heaven ;• 
May Heaven watch thee with tender eyes 
From out the sweetly-smiting skies! 
--■*-*-*- 
UNMARRIED LADIES: 
Talk With nnd About Them—A Vital 
Topic. 
BY MARY A. E. WAGER. 
After m woman readies the age of twenty- 
five years, and remains unmarried, the Society 
in which she moves, usually takes her “ to 
do” about it, as if the chief cud, object and. 
aim of a woman is to gel married, and that 
if she fails so to do, there can be but two 
reasons why she does not, one being that she 
has had no opportunity, and the other that 
she has been "disappointed in love,” — a 
lover having died or having married some¬ 
body else. 
Every observing and intelligent person 
knows that the number of women who re¬ 
main unmarried from want of an “offer” is 
comparatively few. Indeed, unless his obser¬ 
vation lias been more extended than mine, 
lie knows of none. Thousands of women 
are unmarried to-day because they were not 
willing to accept such men for husbands ns 
other women were quite willing to, and did, 
accept; neither are the majority of unmar¬ 
ried women, living single, tombstones to 
dead lovers or living married ones. 
A lew live unmarried from choice, and 
would not marry for “ any consideration,” 
These are mostly professional women, whose 
ambition to excel in their chosen vocation is 
paramount to all other possibilities. Some 
remain single from pure selfishness, others 
because of dread of what matrimony com¬ 
prehends, and others from a variety of rea¬ 
sons. But while many women remain un¬ 
married, hundreds marry from fashionable 
fright —not that they desire ft'om their hearts 
so to do, but because they lack in womanly 
strength and in high moral courage, and be¬ 
cause they fancy that marriage will cut the 
knot of their troubles, which usually con¬ 
sists ot worry about, the future, what they 
will do, what will become of them, and 
what they will become, if they don't marry. 
1 have faith in men ; 1 believe in marriage; 
but if there is an individual on the earth 
that I especially honor, it is that man or 
woman whose soul is so wedded to honor, 
truth, purity, to a sweet, blessed dream of 
marriage, that the promise of any reality 
short of that, of what marriage ought to he, 
has no temptation whatever for them. 
Women have forever been slaves more to 
custom than to “ man’s tyranny.” Men aid 
and abet in perpetuating this slavery. Fath¬ 
ers rest, easier on their death-beds if their 
daughters are all married. There is such a 
responsibility lifted off the father, or brother, 
or the nearest protecting kin, when the 
daughter or sister is finally married, trans¬ 
ferred to the personal property of another 
man. Ho the state of society has been such 
for many years, (I am glad to record that it 
lias greatly improved in the last few,) that a 
girl choosing to remain unmarried beyond 
twenty-five years of age, has been a martyr 
to the most ill-mannered, as well as vexing 
catechising, viz.;—“ Why don’t you get mar¬ 
ried?” “ You’ll be an old maid before you 
know it, and what then?” “I hope you 
don’t intend to allow yourself to be ud old 
maid! You’re too good looking for that!” 
And if the girl has allowed herself to become 
an old maid, soma old grandfather thinks it 
" a great pity.” Foolish and thoughtless as 
such talk is, it lias nevertheless a power that 
sends more women into wedlock than love, 
in its best, sense, draws in. 
In the lirsi place it is just as respectable 
to be a maid as to be a wife. It is vastly 
more respectable to tic a happy maid than a 
inis-married wife. As the bachelor said,“ It 
N >s much better to be laughed at because you 
are not married, than to be unable to laugh 
because you are.” Two days’ reading of 
the current newspapers will convince the 
most skeptical that “ to be married is not 
always to be happy ” by a very great ways. 
Divorces speak a language that cannot be 
gaiusayed. And the number of people who 
ought to he divorced, because man joined 
those together whom Ooi>, from the begin¬ 
ning to the end of eternity, never meant to 
put together, but put them “asunder” as 
is the East from the West, is overwhelming¬ 
ly large. 
It is a terrible mistake for anybody to 
make, to think that no woman’s life is a 
“success” outside the pale of wifehood. It. 
is not what a woman is to one individual, 
but what she is to society, or the world, that 
constitutes her largest and best value, her 
true success. 
There is but one. tiling that should ever 
put a wedding ring on a woman's linger, 
and that is love. 
Never marry a man, my sister, because he 
is “ nice,” or because your friends “ advise 
it,” or because he is so good, so moral, so 
high-toned, such a true Christian, and all 
the other desirable things that are commonly 
supposed to make a man lovable, and which 
is accounted “ so strange” If a woman don't 
love him; don’t marry a man because lie 
will give you independence from youv“ri 
latious,” or from work; don’t marry him 
for his moustache, or shirt-bosom, or well 
shaped boots; don’t marry a man from a 
sense of gratitude or pity; don’t marry a 
man “to get rid of him;” don't marry one' 
yon fry to love, under the plea that perhaps 
you’ll (earn to love him afterward ; don’t, 
marry a man for the sake of spiting some 
other person; and loudly, don't, for Heav¬ 
en’s sake, (and Heaven is love,) accept a 
man because you don’t think you can ever 
do any heller and doubt if you ever have a 
better offer. IIow many, many times is a 
girl advised to accept a man on this'ac¬ 
count 1 An inventory of the man is taken, 
and a whole neighborhood comes to the con¬ 
clusion that she “ can’t do any better!” 
If marriage is to be regarded as merely a 
civil, business contract, all head and no 
heart, then it is of course the shrewdest part 
to take the man with the best inventory. 
But if a woman is a believer in the theory 
that there is to her a world of difference be¬ 
tween two men who may be to a casual ob 
server exact counterparts, and that while 
one answers to every fiber tone of her exist 
cnee, and the other is a mute or discordant 
nature, she recognizes the fatality of ignor¬ 
ing the difference. And any woman who 
stands on. her heart at the marriage altar nn< 
gives her hand in marriage to a man whose 
face is not the most precious one on earth, 
whose presence does not give her the su- 
premest rest, satisfaction and content, vows 
to love, when she cannot, to obey because 
of force, to honor and cherish where she will 
find contempt and repugnance. It is a piti¬ 
able shift, trying to “drive liking to love;” 
trying to be a good and true wife because 
you have promised, to lie such, and trying to 
subject yourself to wifely requirements when 
every spark of feeling and nature in you is 
disloyal. Tt, is a pitiful thing to be simply 
bodily married, and so I say to unmarried 
women, for the sakeot happiness,for the sake 
of self-respect; for the sake of genuine re¬ 
spectability; for the sake of all that is noble, 
pure and divine in womanhood as well as 
manhood, do not marry for the sake of any 
“ because” under the sun, for any reason in 
the infinite category of reasons save “ be¬ 
cause” the best and divinest in you demand 
it, and for the “ reason” of Love. 
Human existence Is a compensating one. 
Every joy has its equivalent in sorrow, and 
somehow there is a happiness answering to 
the cry of misery. Nobody ever came into 
the world without getting out of it. There 
are the earth and the sea for the dead and 
alms-houses and charitable institutions for 
people who find a niche nowhere else. And 
there’s work to be done in a thousand forms; 
each soul to be educated and disciplined for 
the next life; Heaven to lie won ; God glori¬ 
fied and enjoyed forever; and i think you are 
yet to leant that nowhere but under the 
matrimonial tent life finds its Alpha and 
Omega. 
-- 
The Parental Duty. —Parton 
I 
$ 
r, i 
at 
*]r 
A 
says; 
“ The best man is he who can rear the best 
child; and the beat woman is she who can 
rear the best child. The whole virtue of the 
race—physical, moral, mental—comes into 
play in the most sweet, most arduous, most 
pleasing, most, difficult of all the work done 
by mortals in this world.” 
-- 
HUMILITY. 
The bird that soars on highest wing. 
Builds on the ground Her lowly ne3t; 
And she that doth most sweetly sin", 
Sings in the shade when all things rest; 
In lark and nightingale wo see 
What honor hath humility. 
The saint that wears heaven’s brightest crown. 
In lowliest adoration bends ; 
The weight of glory bows him down 
The most, when most his soul ascends; 
Nearest the throne itself must he 
The footstool of humUity. 
A careless, slovenly, untasteful habit is 
no more indicative of superior intellectual 
worth in a man than in a woman. Long 
straggling hair, unkempt beard, elawish 
finger nails, clothes put on sideways and 
generally awry, with buttons gone, or half 
unused, never yet made up for lack of brains. 
On the contrary, they are eloquent exponents 
of the fact that their owner needs thorough 
reconstruction; neatness, tidiness and the 
exhibition of good taste in dress, does not 
metamorphose a man into an “ exquisite” or 
“dandy,” as some people seem to suppose. 
I do uot urge such extreme measures for the 
getting up of a fine appearance, as to advise 
young men or old ones to do their hair up in 
papers at night to make it cluster and curl 
as Lord Byron used to, nor to run the risk 
of having scorched heads from the barber’s 
curling irons. But I do urge that., at least, a 
very little attention, he bestowed by men up¬ 
on their dress, and upon the care of their 
clothing. 
1 know all about the ways of the boys in 
flinging their coals on one chair, their vests 
on another, and tossing tlieir hoots in the 
corner or under the bed. I know how their 
collars, nock-ties, suspenders, gloves, cuffs, 
etc., lie around loose from one Sunday until 
the next, unless the careful mother or sister 
puts them to rights. I don’t mean to say 
I,|nit this custom is without excej^pn, for I 
know better. Joe Marshall, whd lived in 
the farm-house next, to ours, used to keep a 
dress suit for two years, and it looked better 
at the end than his brother Tom’s did after 
six month’s wearing. Their sister used to 
say, in commenting on the fad, that Joe 
always folded Ids coat, pants and vest 
nicely, and laid them smoothly in a drawer, 
that he had boxes for neck-ties, sleeve but¬ 
tons, cuffs, handkerchiefs and the like, that 
lie did’nt spend half as much as Tom did, 
and always looked ten times better dressed. 
It, was not a universal custom with him 
to put away mud bespattered clothing, to he 
cleaned, perhaps, a week hence, at its next 
wearing. He did’nt brush his hair in a 
black coat, and leave the dandruff lying on 
ills shoulders and collar. Neither did he 
drive the carriage through every mud-hole 
on tie way to town or cbui’cl^—— 
In England, checkered pantaloons are 
much worn this winter, and, as English 
fashions for gentlemen’s wear mostly prevail 
in America, an attempt is, and has been, 
made to introduce them here. They are un¬ 
deniably, the ugliest, patterns worn. If a 
man desires to look cockneyfied, ioaferi-h, 
villainous, and of the “ swell” order, let him 
clothe his legs with large checked pantaloons. 
Dress Suits. 
A dinner suit is composed of coat and 
vest, of the same with cassimefc trousers of a 
lighter color. A full dress suit is of black 
coat, vest ami pants —coats mostly of the 
swallow-tail order. Blue dress coats, with 
velvet collar and brass buttons are consider¬ 
ably in favor. An under-vest of white, rising 
a little above the outer one is universally 
worn with dress suits. For evening wear, 
very open vests, with two bulions, display¬ 
ing a somewhat elaborate shirt-ft’ont, is en 
vogue. Embroidered shirt-fronts, or those 
ornamented with a neatly fluted ruffle down 
the front, are deemed quite indispensable for 
full evening dress. 
\V (Milling Suits 
are in full black, with white under-vest and 
white neck-tie, which is of heavy white silk 
or satin, with plain or embroidered ends. 
The plain white silk ones are in the best 
taste. For business wear, the 
Prince Teck Tie 
is very popular, it is formed of a flat knob 
with two long-pointed ends. A spring is 
concealed in the tie, which adjusts the strap 
passing around the neck, holding the tie in 
place. They arc of all colei’s and shades, 
in silk and satin, and range in price from one 
dollar and a half to three dollars each. A 
heavy black silk costs the latter amount. 
Collars. 
The Florence, a turned down, pointed 
collar, is much worn. Nice ones in linen 
sell at four dollars and seventy-five cents per 
dozen. Paper collars are tolerated only 
when it is impossible to obtain linen ones 
They are never considered in the best taste. 
ITniidkeruliielh. 
Very neat linen handkerchiefs, with ribbed 
borders and initial embossed in white in one 
corner, sell for nine dollars per dozen. 
In the matter of shirt-front fasteners, the 
screw-stud is most acceptable, as being the 
neatest, safest and most effective. Only liny 
eyelets are worked in lieu of button holes 
and buttons, into which are screwed the 
studs. They are so quickly and easily adjust¬ 
ed as never to leave traces of the scrabble 
oftentimes undergone with buttons. 
Cn lies 
which are very essential (?) to the hoy of the 
period are of almost ever conceivable design 
in head ornamentation. Malacca, a wood of 
farther India, of very strong but. light texture, 
and in color ranging from red to yellow, is 
largely used. Very respectable canes from 
this wood may be bad from $8 to $10 — 
eminently respectable ones range from $10 to 
$25. English white horn, adorned with 
tassels, range in price from $8 to $5, purely 
fancy canes, three-fourths of a yard long, are 
indulged in by hoys who want employment 
for their fingers, and whose moustaches sire 
not yet long enough to twirl. 
i^abbafl) ,limbing. 
CHILDREN, (THINK. 
BY KATE WOODLAND. 
-*♦- 
TUNIC WITH BRETELLES. 
Tins tunic, cut and trimmed to simulate 
six tabs, may he made of silk or satin, or 
even simpler material. The one from which 
this drawing was made was of blossom- 
IiiTTLK children, as yon lilt 
By a tin,side warm ami liright, 
Think of little olios who sit 
In a cheerless home to-night. 
When papa with laughter comes, 
Joining in cash sportive game, 
Think of l'ather’8 reeling home, 
Filling each young heart with shame. 
When mamma, with loving cure, 
Comes to tuck you warm In bed. 
Kisses each young chunk so fair, 
Seeks a blessing for each head, 
Think of children oil whoso brow 
Ne’er a mother’s ItI ms Im laid; 
Whose young lives are lonely now 
From the loss that Death has made. 
Ere you close your eyes In sleep, 
Let your hearts put forth this prayer: 
“ Heavenly Father, guide and keep— 
Make us grateful for Thy care." 
THE HIGHER LIFE. 
The “ higher life,” winch nine-tenths of 
the human family practically ignore, is either 
a myth, or il is not. If nut, then it is that 
for which everything else was made; if it is, 
then “let us eat, drink, and he merry, for 
to-morrow we die.” 
But, glorious old Paul never thought it a 
myth, as it kindled in him such a fiery zeal 
that its light is yet shining with imdimin- 
ished beam. Nor did Luther think U so, for 
the words which it inspired in him ate ring¬ 
ing yet. It cannot he that. Confucius, Zo¬ 
roaster, Socrates, Seneca, and the He¬ 
brew prophets thought it ho; for they lived 
such lives of devotion to it that the world 
will not let their names die. It cannot be 
that, men who have burned at. the stake, and 
hung on gibbets, and died on scaffolds and 
the rack, for civil rights and liberty of con¬ 
science, thought it so, for nothing less than 
an adamantine faith in the higher life could 
have led them through the Red Sea of their 
trial, and made them suck summits of glory 
as we survey the darkness of the past, that 
we blazon them on our banners and bear 
them to the front like a “ pillar of fire.” 
J. W. Quinby. 
-♦-*-*- 
CLEAR DISCRIMINATION. 
colored satin, trimmed with black guipure 
silk braid. 
lace and a heading of 
WATERPROOFS. 
The “ Lounger” of the Illustrated Times 
says:—“ By the way, touching waterproofs, I 
think I can give travelers a valuable hint or 
two. For many years 1 have worn India- 
rubber waterproofs; but ! will buy no more, 
for I have learned that g od Scottish tweed 
can he made perfectly impervious to rain, 
and moreover, I have learned to make it so; 
and for Liu: benefit of my readers I will hero 
give the recipe : — In a bucket ot soft water 
put half a pound of sugar of lead and half a 
pound of powdered alum; stir this at. inter¬ 
val? until it becomes clear; then pour it oil 
into anot her bucket, put the garment therein, 
and let it he in for twenty-four hours ; then 
hang it up to dry, without wringing it. 
“ Two of my party (a lady and gentleman) 
have worn garments thus treated in the 
wildest storm ot -wind and rain,without get¬ 
ting wet. The rain hangs upon t he cloth in 
globules. In short, they are really water¬ 
proof. The gentleman walked, a fortnight, 
ago, nine miles in a storm of rain and wind 
such as you rarely see in the South, and 
when he slipped off his overcoat, his under¬ 
clothes were ns dry as when he put them on. 
That is, I think, a secret worth knowing; 
for cloth, if it can he made to keep out wet, 
is in every way better than what we know 
as waterproofs.” 
-- 
Answers to Correspondents,—13. F. C,—Chate¬ 
laine braids range in price from $1 to $10, and 
go under the name r>f ’’ chignons.” Very (rood 
braids may bo hud for $8.50. Of Course the 
amount of human hair worked upln thorn is not. 
much, but so arranged as to answer all practical 
purposes. No need of begging' pardon for ud- 
dre*sin(f me.-Mrs. L. !>., Woodland. — Ro- 
l.urned to you con ten Is of letter, January 80th. 
Packages of .small value cannot bo expressed a 
(front distance C. t>. I).-1 cannot undertake to 
answer private letters unless stamped envelopes 
arc inclosed. Nut. being made of stamps it is 
impossible; and if I were, it would hardly suit 
my fancy to use myself up in that way. Mint- 
wood. 
--- 
The New Far. The latest “rage” in fur goon 
under a variety of names. Some dealers call ii 
black marten, some French sable, and others 
A luska sable. 11 Is leap, fine am I very dark, and 
is in reality no more or less Mum the natural 
covering of that remarkably odoriferous animal 
mephitis Americana, alias polecat. nlLi* skunk. 
The fur manufacture* quite beautifully, and is 
much sought after for trimming and in fur seta. 
A set, mutr and bon, costa from l'oriy-fiveto lifty 
dollars. Dealers say that the ski ns are sent from 
hereto Paris where they undergo a year’s pre¬ 
paration to fit them for the market. 
There never was a time when that Di¬ 
vine faculty attributed to our Lord, as Mes¬ 
siah, and promised in its measure to His 
people, was more required than at the pres- 
sent moment—the power of discrimination— 
"that we may know how to refuse the evil 
and choose the good”—“that wo may ap¬ 
prove tilings that are excellent,” or, as it is 
in the margin, “ may discern things that dif¬ 
fer.” Light and darkness, truth and error, 
arc so blended together, assume shapes so 
plausible and similar, that,, “if it were pos¬ 
sible, they would deceive the very elect.” 
But; the truly enlightened Christian has an 
instinctive perception of false doctrine. He 
shrinks from its approach like the sensitive 
plant, attd recoils from the smooth and pol¬ 
ished subtleties by which it is often veiled. 
The indefinite suggestion, the half uttered 
doubt respecting God’s truth, is, to the be¬ 
liever, as the first poisonous breath of vice 
passing over the features of virtue. r i here 
is a chill, a shudder, a consciousness of ap¬ 
proaching danger; and the “Sword of the 
Spirit” is grasped more firmly, and the hel¬ 
met of salvation borne more bravely, that, 
having done all, he may be able to stand.— 
Hock. 
-- 
WHAT IS THINE AGE. 
m 
Lustrous silk is comitie; in fashion again. Lus¬ 
terless or “dead ” silk was the effect of a disease 
among silk worms, on (lit. 
“Father,” said a Persian monarch to an 
old man who, according to oriental usage, 
flowed before tile sovereign’s throne, " pray 
be seated. I cannot receive homage from 
one bent with years, and whose head is 
while with the frosts of age.” 
“And now, father” said the monarch, 
when the old man had taken the proffered 
seat, “tell me thine age, how many of the 
sun’s revolutions hast thou counted V” 
“ Sire,” answered the old man, “ I am but 
four years old.” 
“What!” interrupted the king, “fearest 
thou not to answer me rashly, or dost thou 
jest on the very brink of the tomb ?” 
“1 speak not false ly, sire,” replied the 
aged man, “neither would T offer a foolish 
jest ou a subject so solemn. Eighty long 
years have l teas ted in folly and sinful pleas¬ 
ures and in amassing wealth, none of which 
can 1 take with me when L leave this world. 
Four years only have I spent, in doing good 
to my fellow men; and shall I count those 
years that have been utterly wasted ? Are 
they not worse than a blank, and is not that 
portion only worthy to be reckoned as a part 
of my life which has truly answered file’s 
l icst end ?—American Mhmnary. 
-*-*-*-- 
As the Mohammedan never casts away the 
least scrap of paper, lest the name of God 
should be written upon it, so should our min¬ 
utes be cherished, as they may bear charac¬ 
ters affecting our dearest interests, both in 
Time and Eternity. 
