with you had not passed so pleasantly as he had expected.
It is a fact too little taken into account by young women, that until actually married, their relative and home-duties are the same after an engagement has been contracted, as before. When a daughter begins to neglect a father or a brother, for the sake of her lover, it is a bad omen for his happiness. Her attentions in this case are dictated by impulse, not duty; and the same misapprehension of what is just, and right, will in future be equally likely to divert them again from their proper object. It is good even to let your lover see, that such is your estimate of duty, that you can afford even to lose his society for a few minutes, rather than neglect the claims of your family.
I have now imagined a young woman brought into the most serious position she has yet occupied; and if her mind is rightly influenced, she will feel it to be one of deep and solemn consideration. If, during the lapse of her previous existence, she has lived for herself alone, now is the time when her regrets are about to begin; if, as I have so earnestly recommended, she has studiously cultivated habits of duty, and thoughts of affectionate and grateful regard towards her home-connections, now is the the when she will fully enter upon the advantages of having regulated her conduct by the law of love. Already she will have begun to contemplate the character of man in a new light. Admitted to his confidence, she will find him at the same time more admirable, and more requiring as regards herself, than she found him in society; and while her esteem increases with the development of his real merits, she will feel her affection equal to every demand, for she will be rich in that abundance which the heart alone can supply, whose warmest emotions have been called forth and cherished in the genial and healthy atmosphere of domestic life.
