“I do not remember any formal explanation.  But her meaning was obvious.”

“What, then, did she mean?”

A little while Mrs. Dexter thought, and then answered—­

“She thinks that men and women are born partners, and that only they who are fortunate enough to meet are ever happy in marriage—­are, in fact, really married.”

“How is a woman to know that she is rightly mated?” asked Mrs. De Lisle.

“By the law of affinities.  The instincts of our nature are never at fault.”

“So the thief who steals your watch will say the instincts of his nature all prompted to the act.  If our lives were orderly as in the beginning, Mrs. Dexter, we might safely follow the soul’s unerring instincts.  But, unfortunately, this is not the case; and instinct needs the law of revelation and the law of reason for its guide.”

“You believe in true, interior marriages?” said Mrs. Dexter.

“Yes, marriages for eternity.”

“And that they are made here?”

Mrs. De Lisle did not answer immediately.

“The preparation for eternal marriage is here,” she said, speaking thoughtfully.

Mrs. Dexter looked at her like one in doubt as to the meaning of what she heard.  She then said: 

“In a true marriage, souls must conjoin by virtue of an original affinity.  In a word, the male and the female must be born for each other.”

“There are a great many vague notions afloat on this subject,” said Mrs. De Lisle; “and a great deal of flippant talk.  If there are men and women born for each other, one thing is very certain, both need a great deal of alteration before they can unite perfectly; and the trial will, in most cases, not so fully prove this theory of quality in sexual creation as you might suppose.  ’Behold, I was shapen in iniquity!’ If this were not true of every one, there might be a little more hope for happiness in marriage.  Let us imagine the union of two persons, born with that original containing affinity of which you speak—­and the existence of which I do not deny.  We will suppose that the man inherits from his ancestors certain evil and selfish qualities; and that the woman inherits from her ancestors certain evil and selfish qualities also.  They marry young, and before either is disciplined by right principle, or regenerated by Divine truth.  Now, this being the case, do you suppose that, in the beginning, their pulses will beat in perfect harmony?  That there will be no jarring in the machinery of their lives?”

Mrs. De Lisle paused, but received no answer.

“In just the degree,” she continued, “that each is selfish, and fails to repress that selfishness, will the other suffer pain or feel repulsion?  And they will not come into the true accordance of their lives until both are purified through a denial of self, and an elevation of the spiritual above the natural.  For it is in the spiritual plane where true marriages take place; and only with those who are regenerated.  All that goes before is preparation.”