And whatever may result, even if it is the end of your engagement, do not grieve your heart away over it.  Better far to have the end come now than to marry a dependent and shiftless man, who will humiliate your pride by a thousand and one mean traits.  The moment a young wife becomes the financial head of a household, and the man depends upon her to keep the family free from debt, sentiment and romance fly from the windows of the heart, and poor Cupid goes away with his head under his wing.  This situation might befall people long married, as I said before, without causing disaster, because the wife would have years of other experiences stored up in memory, to maintain her respect for her husband.

The natural instinct of a manly man is to be the protector and the breadwinner.  He loves to shield and support the woman of his choice.  If she has any talent or profession which gives her satisfaction to pursue, and which yields her an income, he will, if broad-minded and sympathetic, place no obstacle in her path so long as this vocation is no barrier to their domestic happiness.  But he is sensitive to her assuming any of the financial burdens of life.

If circumstances render it necessary for her to do so, he suffers keenly, and the utmost delicacy and consideration on her part alone can save him from utter humiliation.

This is the attitude of the manly man, my dear Nanette, the man who makes the good husband and father.

The unselfish, broad-minded and considerate wife will lead a husband to think of her right to aid in the establishment and maintenance of a home when she is able to do her part.  But the man who makes a good husband never suggests it as her duty, or asks her to advance money.

It is commendable in you to wish to aid in making a home.  It is unmanly in your lover to ask you to help him pay his debts.  Beware of the lover who asks for or accepts a loan.

To The Rev. Wilton Marsh

Regarding His Son and Daughter

My dear Cousin Wilton:—­You have no idea how your letter took me back to my merry girlhood, when you and I resided in the same neighbourhood, and I was the concern of your precociously serious mind.  Yes, indeed, I do realize what a mistake you made in living the repressed life you did all those early boyhood years.  What a pity your parents reared one of your sensitive and imaginative nature in the gloomy old doctrines of a depressing religion, which so misrepresented the God of love:  and how odd that your father and mine should have been born of the same parents, educated in the same schools, and yet be no more alike in beliefs or methods of life than two people of a different race and era.

And again it is not strange, when we realize that hundreds of generations lie back of both parents, and innumerable ancestors of both father and mother contribute their different mentalities to the children in a family.  Back of that is the great philosophy of reincarnation—­the truth of which impresses me more and more each year I live.