“Paris, ‘The Leafy Month of June.’

“MY DEAR MAC,—­I will be true to my promise.  I will give you the best advice my experience may enable me to afford you.  Friendship is a sacred thing, and I will write as your friend.  Only ten days ago Caroline murmured those delicious sounds at the altar, which announce a heaven upon earth to man.  I see you smile, you rogue, as you read this, but I repeat it—­that announce a heaven upon earth to man.

“Some men take a wife carelessly, as they select a dinner at their club, as though they were catering only to satisfy the whim of the hour.  Others adopt all the homely philosophy of Dr. Primrose, and reflect how the wife will wear, and whether she have the qualities that will keep the house in order.  Others, again, are lured into matrimony by the tinkling of the pianoforte, or the elaboration of a bunch of flowers upon a Bristol board.  Remember Calfsfoot.  His wife actually fiddled him into the church.  Was there ever an uglier woman?  Two of her front teeth were gone, and she was bald.  Fortunately for her, Beauty draws us with a single hair, or she had not netted Calfsfoot.  Now what a miserable time he has of it.  She is a vixen.  You know what fiddle-strings are made of; well, I’m told she supplies her own.  But why should I dwell on infelicitous unions of this kind?  It was obvious to every rational creature from the first—­and to him most concerned—­that Mrs. Calfsfoot would fiddle poor C. into a lunatic asylum.  And if he be not there yet, depend upon it he’s on the high road.

“Between Mrs. Calfsfoot and my Caroline (you should have seen her hanging upon my shoulder, her auburn ringlets tickling my happy cheek, begging me to call her Carrie!)—­between Mrs. Calfsfoot and my Carrie, then, what a contrast!  As I sat last evening in one of the shady nooks of the Bois de Boulogne, watching the boats, with their coloured lights, floating about the lake, my Carrie’s hand trembling like a caught bird in mine, I thought, can this sweet, amiable, innocent creature have anything in common with that assured, loud-voiced, pretentious Mrs. Calfsfoot.  Calfsfoot told me that he was very happy during the honeymoon.  But, then, people’s notions of happiness vary, and I cannot for the life of me conceive how a man of Calfsfoot’s sense—­for he has sound common sense on most points—­could have looked twice at the creature he took to his bosom.  I have heard of people who like to nurse vipers; can friend C. be of this strange band?  Now, I am happy—­supremely happy, I may say, because I honestly believe my Carrie to be the most adorable creature on the face of God’s earth.  A man who could not be happy with her would not deserve felicity.  You should see her at the breakfast-table, in a snow-white dress, with just a purple band about her dainty waist, handling the cups and saucers!  The first time she asked me whether I would take two lumps of sugar (I could have taken both of them from