TO GIRLS ABOUT TO MARRY.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 9, 27 February 1892, Page 210

TO GIRLS ABOUT TO MARRY.

BY FELICIA HOLT. Allow me just a word or two in the ears of many of the girls who are about to marry. Do not marry, my dear, until you and Jack have a small bank account. I take it you have had to work for your own living, therefore you are the more independent, and, to use a Hibernianism, ‘ What is yours, is your own.’ The land teems with saving-funds ; I hope you have a book in one of them, with a good balance in your favour. If necessary, draw out some of this for your house furnishing, but not all : leave a reserve for the rainy day which may come in the shape of ill-health or we know not what form. Let your furnishing be simple, but tasty ;do not devote the greater part to a swell carpet for your parlour, or a walnut suite for your bedroom. Paint your rooms round the edges for about two feet, and have tasty ingrain carpet rugs, and remember there is much light-wood furniture which is inexpensive and really charming. This suggestion, if followed, will give you excellent effects, less work, and more health in your family. Buy yourself good and durable clothes, and a sufficiency to last for some time. In place of an imitation seal sacque, and a hat surmounted by a cockatoo as big as a young turkey, select a fine cloth coat and, at least, two woollen gowns and plenty of durable underwear. A young girl of my acquaintance, in very moderate circumstances, was extremely particular to have a black silk dress in her wedding outfit, which was much coveted by her less pretentious friends, but I doubt if she would have been considered such an object of envy had they seen her as I did six weeks after the wedding, when she entertained me in a much worn ‘ Mother Hubbard ’ wrapper, and with slip shod feet, which disclosed all too plainly the holes in her stockings ; her face wore a lugubrious air of discontent; she had not found marriage the holiday it promised to be. As I looked at her front door, already covered with finger-marks, I sighed to think what a little industry, combined with soap and water, would effect, and what a miserable future awaited her companion in misery, who, out of the great lottery had drawn such a blank. I will give but one more illustration out of, possibly, a hundred. I knew a young woman who moved out of a tasty lit tle home, because as she told me, she ‘ would rather have a handsome bedroom suite, and a real Brussels carpet, than a whole house to herself.’ 1 may- add that she lived to miss her husband, as well as her house, for he, having no longer a home of his own, began to look around him and meeting plenty of idle people like himself, he soon found more congenial company than his lazy wife. Remember how much you have in your own power ; unless you have married an exceptionally bad man, yon can make or mar him. Do not be persuaded to marry unless you can see your way clear before you ; then, having joined hands, throw all your heart, courage and determination into your work. It is for life ; make then, I beseech you, an earnest effort to secure your happiness and his. Give him a loving welcome, an attractive home and a well-cooked meal, and, above all, let him find you fair to look upon. Let your eyes be as two jewels for depth and brilliancy, and your soft hair shade a brow whereon sweet content shall rest.