children (principally their daughters) from
marrying, in order to retain them around
them at home. Certainly, matches are now
and then projected which it is the duty of a
parent to oppose; but there is a conscientious
and sorrowful opposition, and an egotistical
and captious opposition; and men and women,
in their self-deception, may sometimes
mistake the one for the other. "Marry your
daughters, lest they marry themselves and
run off with the ploughman or the groom,"
is an axiom of worldly wisdom. "Marry your
daughters," I say, " if you can do so
satisfactorily, that they may become happy wives
and mothers, fulfilling the destiny allotted
to them by their Great Creator. Marry
them, if worthy suitors offer, lest they remain
single and unprotected after your departure.
Marry them, lest they say in their bitter
disappointment and loneliness, ' Our parents
thought only of their own comfort and
convenience. We now find that our welfare
and settlement in life was disregarded! ' "—
But, I am sure, my kindhearted comrade in
years, you are more generous to your own
dear girls than to dream of preventing the
completion of their little romance, in order
to keep them at home in domestic slavery,
drudging and pining as your waiting-maids.

We are apt,—  and by "we" I mean, of
course, we people getting into years,—  not to
give our young friends half the credit they
deserve for being able to manage for
themselves. We like to continue to handle the reins
and the whip; which is quite right, while
we are driving our own private carriage, but
not right when we want to conduct the
omnibus of our posterity. We must interfere,
and put matters to rights continually;
we cannot let the young people alone; they
must ask our advice at every step; we must
exercise a veto on every movement; nothing
can go on properly if they do not consult us.
Now, there, I opine, we are greatly mistaken.

When a youngster, I was staying in an
hotel in Paris, for the first time, quite alone.
There scraped acquaintance with me, a middle-
aged compatriot (I suppose; for he spoke
English and not much else), who seemed to
take a particular fancy to my society. One
day, at the close of a conversation at which
no other inmate of the hotel was present, he
led the talk to the subject of cash and ready
money, and the best way of keeping it safe
while on a journey or in a foreign city.

"I always carry mine in the waistband of
my trowsers," he said, with self-sufficient
complacency. " No one would ever think of
stealing it there."

"Really! What, always? By night and
by day? Wherever you go? Do you take
all your money with you on your person, in
that way?"

"Yes; I always have it there, wherever I
go; at the play, or supping at a restaurant,
it is all the same; and I have never lost any
money yet. Don't you think it a good place?
Can you tell me of a better? Where do you
keep yours?"

"Upon my word," I answered, with a
smile, " you'll excuse my saying that you
are very imprudent. You have not the
slightest knowledge of me; for anything
you know, I may be a swindler and a thief.
I must think you are exceedingly incautious
to tell an utter stranger, like myself, where
I can lay hands on all your bank notes and
gold on all occasions, if I happened to catch
you napping or off your guard."

My gentleman turned on his heel with a
dry cough, and I never saw him afterwards.
But I do not think that, ten years hence, I
shall be able to reject a doubtful overture in
better style.

The time will be coming,—is come, perhaps,
—when your young people must decide on
the course and main occupation of their
future lives. You will expect to have a voice
in the matter. Quite right, if a voice of
counsel, of remonstrance, of suggestion, of
pointing out unsuspected difficulties, of
encouragement by developing the means of
success. Such a voice as that from an elder
will always be listened to. But perhaps you
have already settled in your own mind the
calling to be followed, and you mean simply
to call on the youngster to accept and
register your decree on the opening pages of
his autobiography. A questionable proceeding,
my dear sir, unless you are perfectly
assured of what the young man's own
unbiassed choice will be. True, there are
professions and talents which descend in families
from father to son, as naturally as the art of
mouse-catching is hereditarily transmitted
from cat to kitten. We can easily fancy a
juvenile Herschell peeping through a
telescope soon after he has learnt to run alone.
A banker's son is mostly a banker born; the
same of the scions of large mercantile houses,
or flourishing establishments in trade. But
it is not that which I am thinking of, but of
some new, untried line of life,—  of some
advancement, in fact, in the social and
professional scale. Ambitious parents often urge
their children to enter a career .which the
circumstances of their own youth had forbidden
to themselves. They constantly hear,
and they unceasingly repeat to themselves,
the aphorism that, in England, the highest
honours are open to the lowest; that the
sons of butchers, of bakers, and of still
humbler tradesmen, have risen to be bishops
and lord-chancellors. They will hardly
delude themselves to a similar extent in respect
to the army and the diplomatic service. But
supposing the rule to be universally true, still
let them beware,—these aspirants after
reflected honours! From eating terms in hall,
to sitting on the woolsack, there is more than
one step. Have you considered how your
young adventurer is to live and keep up the
habits of a gentleman, in the interval? He