“Reflect for a moment, and see if my meaning is not apparent.”

“You think I will offend him if I point out a fault, or seek to correct it?”

“A result most likely to follow.”

“I will not think so poorly of his good sense,” answered Kate, with some gravity of manner.  The suggestion half offended her.

“None are perfect, my young friend; don’t forget that,” said Mrs. Morton, with equal seriousness.  “To think differently is a common mistake of persons circumstanced as you are.”

“It’s no mistake of mine, let me assure you,” replied Kate.  “I can see faults as quickly as any one.  Love can’t blind me.  It is because I see defects in Frederick that I wish to correct them.”

“And you trust to his good sense to take the work of correction kindly?”

“Certainly I do.”

“Then you most probably think him more perfect than he really is.  Very few people can bear to be told of their faults, and fewer still to be told of them by those they love.  Love is expected to be blind to defects; therefore, when it is seen looking at and pointing them out, the feeling produced is, in the very nature of things, a disagreeable one.  Take my advice, and let Frederick’s faults alone, at least for a year after you are married; and even then put your hand on them very lightly, and as if by accident.”

“Do you think I could see him lounge, or, rather, slide down in his chair in that ungraceful way, and not speak to him about it?  Not I. It makes me nervous now; and, if I wasn’t afraid he might take it unkindly, would call his attention to it.”

“Do you think he will be less likely to take it unkindly after marriage?”

“Certainly.  Then I will have a right to speak to him about it.”

“Then marriage will give you certain rights over your husband?”

“It will give him rights over me, and a very poor rule that is which doesn’t work both ways.  Marriage will make him my husband; and, surely, a wife may tell her husband that he is not perfect, without offending him.”

“Kate, Kate; you don’t know what you are talking about, child!”

“I think I do.”

“And I know you don’t.”

“Oh, well, Mrs. Morton, we won’t quarrel about it,” said Kate, laughing.  “I mean to make one of the best of wives, and have one of the best of husbands to be found.  He will require a little fixing up to make him just to my mind, but don’t you fear but what I’ll do it in the gentlest possible manner.  Women have more taste than men, you know, and a man never looks and acts just right until he gets a woman to take charge of him.”

A happy bride Kate became a few months after this little conversation took place, and Lee thought himself the most fortunate of men in obtaining such a lovely, accomplished, and right-minded woman for a wife.  Swiftly glided away the sweet honey-moon, without a jar of discord, though, during the time, Kate saw a good many things not exactly to her mind, and which she set down as needing correction.