What reader is there, male or female, of such stories as is this, who has not often discussed in his or her own mind the different sides of this question of love and marriage?  On either side enough may be said by any arguer to convince at any rate himself.  It must be wrong for a man, whose income is both insufficient and precarious also, not only to double his own cares and burdens, but to place the weight of that doubled burden on other shoulders besides his own, on shoulders that are tender and soft, and ill adapted to the carriage of any crushing weight.  And then that doubled burden, that burden of two mouths to be fed, of two backs to be covered, of two minds to be satisfied, is so apt to double itself again and again The two so speedily become four, and six!  And then there is the feeling that that kind of semi-poverty, which has in itself something of the pleasantness of independence, when it is borne by a man alone, entails the miseries of a draggle-tailed and querulous existence when it is imposed on a woman who has in her own home enjoyed the comforts of affluence.  As a man thinks of all this, if he chooses to argue with himself on that side, there is enough in the argument to make him feel that not only as a wise man but as an honest man, he had better let the young lady alone.  She is well as she is, and he sees around him so many who have tried the chances of marriage and who are not well!  Look at Jones with his wan, worn wife and his five children, Jones who is not yet thirty, of whom he happens to know that the wretched man cannot look his doctor in the face, and that the doctor is as necessary to the man’s house as is the butcher!  What heart can Jones have for his work with such a burden as this upon his shoulders?  And so the thinker, who argues on that side, resolves that the young lady shall go her own way for him.

But the arguments on the other side are equally cogent, and so much more alluring!  And they are used by the same man with reference to the same passion, and are intended by him to put himself right in his conduct in reference to the same dear girl.  Only the former line of thoughts occurred to him on a Saturday, when he was ending his week rather gloomily, and this other way of thinking on the same subject has come upon him on a Monday, as he is beginning his week with renewed hope.  Does this young girl of his heart love him?  And if so, their affection for each other being thus reciprocal, is she not entitled to an expression of her opinion and her wishes on this difficult subject?  And if she be willing to run the risk and to encounter the dangers, to do so on his behalf, because she is willing to share everything with him, is it becoming in him, a man, to fear what she does not fear?  If she be not willing let her say so.  If there be any speaking, he must speak first but she is entitled, as much as he is, to her own ideas respecting their great outlook into the affairs of the world.  And then is it not