"Oh, Bernard!" she began, but then something unusual in his expression struck her. A feeling of something like chill alarm crossed her heart. How dignified he looked! How commanding! How different-even she knew-from the featherbrained fops with whom she had even now been jesting and laughing!

"Well, if I must, I must, I suppose,' " she said, shrugging her shoulders, and taking his arm. And with a final farewell to her attendants she went away with her "lover."

'Jove! but that girl is a caution!" observed one of the young men, giving unrestrained flow to his mirth, as Bernard and his betrothed disappeared. "I never had such fun in my life!"

"She'll find it a caution, being married to Aglionby," said a second, looking into the future. "Didn't you see him as he came up to us? Lucifer himself couldn't have looked more deuced stiff."

"Yes I saw. They don't look exactly as if they were created to run in a pair!" said the first

leave her to herself in such a way ?"

"He's been dancing attendance on the eldest Miss Conisbrough all evening, and left this little girl to amuse herself with suitable companions." "On Miss Conisbrough-why, I thought they were at daggers drawn."

"Didn't look like it, I assure you. I can't make it out, I confess. Only, on my honor, they were as good-looking a couple as any in the room. Couldn't help noticing them. But look here, St. John-will you take the odds-ten to one-that it doesn't come off?"

“The wedding ?-all right. At all—or within a year?"

Oh, hang a year!—at all. Ten to one that Aglionby and the little dressmaker don't get married at all."

"Yes; but there must be some time fixed. Ten to one that it's broken off within a year." 'In sovs? Done with you!"

Then the band struck up again for one of the last waltzes, and the young men dispersed to find their partners for the same.

IN the two leading countries of the world, the United States and England, the question as to what is necessary to constitute a complete and perfect marriage is still unsettled.

The Bible account of the institution opens with the expression of God's opinion, that it is not good for man to be alone, with which opinion some men in later and more enlightened ages have asked, respectfully, it is hoped, to differ. Metellus Numidicus said, in an address to the Roman people, that had nature ordained us to live without woman's help, we should be rid of a very troublesome companion, and that he could recommend marriage only as a sacrifice of private pleasure to public weal.

These words are not surprising from the mouth of a pagan, but it is strange that the primitive Christians, in the face of the words, "Therefore shall a man leave his father," etc., and of God's injunction, given before the fall, to the first pair, "Be ye fruitful," etc.-it is strange that they should have held as a favorite doctrine, that if Adam had retained his original innocency he would have lived forever in a state of virgin purity, and that, by some harmless mode of vegetation, paradise would have been peopled by a race of innocent and immortal beings; that the use of marriage was permitted to his fallen posterity as an expedient to continue the race, and as a restraint on licentiousness. As to what, in such a state, would have been the signification of the words father and mother-used previous to the fall -these sages have not left an opinion.

This recalls an anecdote of Lamb, by Hazlitt. At a literary assemblage the question was, "Whom of the dead would you most like to see?" Lamb mentioned Sir Thomas Browne, explaining, as the singularity of his choice provoked laughter and inquiry, "Who would not like to see the lineaments of a man who, having been twice married, wished that men were propagated like trees?"

Whatever may have been God's designs manward, previous to the fall, if the Bible expresses his will, marriage has his sanction. His injunction to the first pair and the accompaniament to every promise of blessing is, "Be ye fruitful, multiply,

and replenish the earth," an injunction, Sydney Smith remarks, which man has more implicitly obeyed than any God ever gave him. Barrenness the ancient Jews regarded as a judgment from God; a numerous family as a blessing; indeed, their nuptial benediction was the invoking a numerous offspring. Two of the Ten Commandments pertain to marriage. The Bible statutes regulating this and divorcement are definite and stringent. Adultery, unless, indeed, the offender chanced to be a man, the Jews punished by death; the debauching of a maid was avenged with severest retribution. Marriage was a subject about which Christ was repeatedly questioned; it was used to express the mystical union between the Church and the Redeemer. He founded one of his most beautiful and solemn parables on the Jewish marriage rites; He sanctioned by his presence the wedding feast in Cana, and performed a miracle for the guests' refreshment; marriage is expressly pronounced honorable in all. Indeed, there is but one passage in the Scripture which may be construed as adverse in any sense to marriage. This is contained in a bit of advice by St. Paul. But in this he states that he speaks as a man, and asserts his liberty to marry. Indeed, there are ancient writers, as Clemens Alexandrinus, Ignatius, and others, who reckon St. Paul in the list of married disciples, and he has never availed himself of spiritual telegraphy to contradict the suggestion.

Glancing at profane history, we find that marriage has enlisted the attention of philosophers and legislators to no secondary extent. Family enjoyments have been very anciently held in high esteem, and to the security of these marriage was essential; so by remote tradition the institution is referred to the bounty of the gods. No nation is so barbarous that it has not its marriage code, even if it aims no higher than that of the Ashantees, which gives their king three thousand women. In the Gallic councils, from the fourth to the tenth century, to which Guizot ascribes a vast civilizing influence, there is scarcely one which has not its marriage enactments. Throughout the State the ancient Greeks encouraged marriage, and a failure to enter the connubial state was at

tended by loss of esteem and often by the infliction of punishment. Zoroaster condemned celibacy with abhorrence, as a criminal rejection of God's best gift. The saint in the Magian religion was obliged to beget children. The ancient Medes, according to Strabo, enforced polygamy by law. Abstinence from marriage, when there is no just impediment, is held by the Egyptians as disreputable. A temporary sojourner in Egypt records that, having occasion to move his residence, he engaged a house and advanced a part of the rent, when the owner informed him that the inhabitants of the quarter objected to his living among them because he was unmarried.

Among the Arabs marriage is considered so honorable and celibacy such a reproach, that a woman will become second wife to a man already married, to escape the obloquy attached to a single life. Though with us a man has the privilege of living unmarried without incurring loss of esteem, who can claim that woman has such a prerogative?

Contrary to Christ's testimony, that in heaven there is no marrying, Mahomet taught that seventy-two black-eyed girls of resplendent beauty, blooming youth, virgin purity, and exquisite sensibility will be created for the meanest believer. Notwithstanding a vulgar prejudice, the heavenly gates will be open to both sexes; but Mahomet has not specified the male companions of the female elect, lest he should either alarm the jealousy of their former husbands, or disturb their felicity by the suspicion of an everlasting marriage.

So says Gibbon, and this is offered as indicating something of the Moslem's estimation of the connubial state.

The space the institution occupies in statutes; the volumes given to it—four-fifths of light literature has this for its topic; the lectures-drawing ones-of which it is the subject; the share it has in advertisements, with many another evidence, all attest its vitality. Even the hostility of certain fraternities is proof of its importance; men do not war against trifles. To the three dominant heart-questions, What shall we eat, what drink, and how be clothed? a fourth might be addedWhom shall we marry?

Except in Protestant countries, marriage ranks with the sacraments; for we ever find the institution, with other valued interests, committed to

the people's strongest shelter, and this strongest shelter, except in Protestant Christian countries, is the people's religion. Nations outgrowing priestcraft remove from the custody of the Church a matter so vital. They recognize the need of giving to its protection the strong hand of the law. Hence, in these, marriage is a civil contract, upon which, indeed, the Church, coming to the State's support, lays the hand of benediction, consecrating it as the most solemn and sacred of contracts.

Polygamy prevails over the greater portion of the earth's surface-Europe, except Turkey, and the United States, except Utah, are unstained by it. It is a prevalent idea that the Chinese are polygamists; but while their laws permit concubinage, they allow a man but one tsy, or wife. The station from which she is chosen is different from that of his tsie, or handmaid, of whom he may have any number. She is espoused with formalities of bewildering number and complexity, and is distinguished by a title.

The ancient Greeks permitted polygamy only after a devastating national calamity, as war or pestilence. Socrates is said to have taken a second wife on such account. The ancient Germans allowed a plurality of wives to their princes, that they might by alliances strengthen the State.

Though polygamy seems opposed to the genius of Roman institutions, it was introduced into the State by Valentinian. The story, which Gibbon pronounces a fable, is, that the Empress Severa, having repeatedly expressed admiration of Justina's charms, the emperor was tempted to take a second wife, and by edict extended the domestic privilege to his subjects.

If there is felicity in a multitude of spouses, woman, for her inequality of privilege in this respect, may find some compensation in the fact that polyandria prevails among classes of Hindoos, and in the very singular kind of polygamy practiced in Thibet, where all the brothers of a family have the same wife, chosen by the eldest.

Though Mahomet had seventeen wives, a modest number when we remember Solomon's seven hundred spouses and three hundred concubines, and when we consider that, by special revelation to the prophet, the whole female sex was abandoned to his desire, the Moslem religion permits a man. but four legitimate wives. Many Mahometan nations exhibit a noticeable temperance in the

exercise of their prerogatives. An Arab rarely takes more than two wives, and often but one, though an Arabian wife-like a few American wives-is profitable rather than expensive. This temperance may explain the rarity of separations. These result chiefly from inability to maintain the wife, when she is returned to her friends with liberty to re-marry. The Arabs exhibit a liberality toward woman unusual with Moslems, allowing a wife ill-treated a divorce.

The Afghan is even more temperate than the Arab, generally contenting himself with one wife, and often remaining unmarried until forty, occasioned, perhaps, by his poverty, for he purchases his wife. But though more temperate, the Afghans are less liberal to women, treating them with jealous tyranny. Away from the towns, however, this in a measure disappears. The women go unveiled, and the young people, less restrained, exercise more choice in mating. Indeed, it is possible for a lover of enterprise to obtain his mistress without her parents' consent, by such heroic achievement as the cutting a lock of her hair, snatching her veil, or by throwing a sheet over her, and proclaiming her his affianced wife. Their marriage customs nearly resemble those of their Persian neighbors.

Among the latter any woman outside the prohibited degrees may be taken into the harem by marriage, purchase, or hire.

Though parties are often betrothed in infancy, they seldom see each other till they stand before the priest. The nuptial ceremony must be witnessed by two men, or by one man and two women, from which it will be seen that with these Orientals a woman is reckoned equal to half a man-an approximation toward sexual equality to which some nations more enlightened have not attained. Weddings are occasions of such display as would be considered heresy by a prudent Yankee couple on the eve of housekeeping and a family..

But in wedding extravagancies they are surpassed by the Hindoos. A Bengal merchant often spends sixty thousand dollars on the procession and shows, besides vast sums in presents.

The Persian bride being conducted to her reception-room, the husband enters, and, in a glass, sees her face for the first time. Though the revelation of personal charms may be gratifying, their absence cannot prove very dismaying, since he can divorce his wife at will, though the step may

engender scandal, and involves the relinquishment of the dowry.

The bridegroom then bites a bit of candy in halves, eating one and presenting the other to the bride. By this he perhaps indicates his intention. of sharing with her the sweets of life. Throwing one of her stockings over his left shoulder, he places the other under his right foot, and then orders all the spectators to withdraw. What these impressive evolutions are intended to symbolize is left to the reader's conjecture.

We are used to think with commiseration of the Circassian maid sold into Persian or Turkish slavery. But she leaves her home gladly, having been dazzled by stories of palaces, jewels, and finery awaiting her in the far-away harem. And the mother parts from her without reluctance, after infinite pains to render her worthy the brilliant promotion. This is but an outgrowth of the Spartan-like apathy which underlies the Circassian family system, by which the husband never meets his wife, except by stealth, until after the birth of the first child, and is insulted if she is even named in his presence, and by which the child at three years is yielded to some friendly nobleman, not to be seen by the parents until his manhood. We may believe that removal from such a domestic system to that of the Persian harem is promotion.

The Persian ladies of rank dress well. There are meetings to talk gossip and tell stories and to show each other their jewels and finery. They have parties at each others' houses, when they are entertained by singing and dancing women, while at the baths all restraint is set aside, and full rein given to merriment and scandal.

Nor is life in a harem necessarily one of idleness and luxury. The Grand Mogul Acbar had a body-guard of Arab women, extremely well disciplined, and among whom were all the degrees that obtain among men. This recalls the fact that at the battle of Yermuk the last line was held by Arab women, under the sister of Derar, who had enlisted in the holy war, and were skilled in the use of the bow and lance, and who thrice drove back, by their blows and their reproaches, the retreating Arabs against the Roman cavalry.

Acbar's seraglio contained over five thousand women, each having her separate apartment and her vocation. The ladies were presided over by duennas, all being under one superintendent. Women guarded the interior of the palace, the