93.  But, in order to possess this precious trust-worthiness, you must, if you can, exercise your reason in the choice of your partner.  If she be vain of her person, very fond of dress, fond of flattery, at all given to gadding about, fond of what are called parties of pleasure, or coquetish, though in the least degree; if either of these, she never will be trust-worthy; worthy; she cannot change her nature; and if you marry her, you will be unjust if you expect trust-worthiness at her hands.  But, besides this, even if you find in her that innate ‘sobriety’ of which I have been speaking, there requires on your part, and that at once too, confidence and trust without any limit.  Confidence is, in this case, nothing unless it be reciprocal.  To have a trust-worthy wife, you must begin by showing her, even before you are married, that you have no suspicions, no fears, no doubts, with regard to her.  Many a man has been discarded by a virtuous girl, merely on account of his querulous conduct.  All women despise jealous men; and, if they marry such their motive is other than that of affection.  Therefore, begin by proofs of unlimited confidence; and, as example may serve to assist precept, and as I never have preached that which I have not practised, I will give you the history of my own conduct in this respect.

94.  When I first saw my wife, she was thirteen years old, and I was within about a month of twenty-one.  She was the daughter of a Serjeant of artillery, and I was the Serjeant-Major of a regiment of foot, both stationed in forts near the city of St. John, in the Province of New-Brunswick.  I sat in the same room with her, for about an hour, in company with others, and I made up my mind that she was the very girl for me.  That I thought her beautiful is certain, for that I had always said should be an indispensable qualification; but I saw in her what I deemed marks of that sobriety of conduct of which I have said so much, and which has been by far the greatest blessing of my life.  It was now dead of winter, and, of course, the snow several feet deep on the ground, and the weather piercing cold.  It was my habit, when I had done my morning’s writing, to go out at break of day to take a walk on a hill at the foot of which our barracks lay.  In about three mornings after I had first seen her, I had, by an invitation to breakfast with me, got up two young men to join me in my walk; and our road lay by the house of her father and mother.  It was hardly light, but she was out on the snow, scrubbing out a washing-tub.  ‘That’s the girl for me,’ said I, when we had got out of her hearing.  One of these young men came to England soon afterwards; and he, who keeps an inn in Yorkshire, came over to Preston, at the time of the election, to verify whether I were the same man.  When he found that I was, he appeared surprised; but what was his surprise, when I told him that those tall young men, whom he saw around me, were the sons of that pretty little girl that he and I saw scrubbing out the washing-tub on the snow in New-Brunswick at day-break in the morning!