(g ) @l 
254 THE EVENING BEFORE MARRIAGE. 
secret, and straightway practised it, how many 
marriages were happier than, alas ! they are ! " 
Louise kisi^d her aunt's hand with ardor. " I 
feel that it must be so. Where this confidence is 
absent, the married, even after wedlock, are two 
strangers, who do not know each other. It should be 
so : without this there can be no happiness. And 
now, aunt, the best preservative of female beauty ? " 
Her aunt smiled and said, " We may not con- 
ceal from ourselves that a handsome man pleases 
us a hundred times more than an ill-looking one, 
and the men are pleased wdth us when we are 
pretty. But what we call beautiful what in the 
men pleases us, and in us what pleases the men is 
not skin, and hair, and shape, and color, as in a 
picture, or in a statue ; but it is the character ; it is 
the soul that is within these, which enchants us by 
looks and words, earnestness, and joy, and sorrow. 
The men admire us the more they suppose those 
virtues of the mind to exist in us which the 
outside promises ; and we think a malicious 
man disagreeable, however graceful and hand- 
some he may be. Let a young maiden, then, 
who would preserve her beauty, preserve but that 
purity of ^oul, those sweet qualities of the mind, 
those virtues, in short, by which she first drew her 
lover to her feet. And the best preservative of 
virtue, to render it unchanging, and keep it ever 
young, is religion that inward union with the De- 
ity and eternity and faith ; is piety that walk- 
. (g)j 
