From Days Gone By July 15, 1915

July 15, 1915.

    TAKING A CHANCE ON HAPPINESS IN WEDLOCK.

 Happy, happier far than thou,

With the laurel on thy brow,

She that makes the humblest hearth

Lovely but to one on earth.

    There are very few girls who are blessed with a model lover, a man who has no faults. From the time his visits indicate serious intentions the family of his sweetheart begin to speculate as to what faults he may have. Love is blind, they concede, declaring among themselves that it is wises and best to point out his shortcomings. Then she will not jump blindly into matrimony.

    Her father insinuates that a man's sponge who comes calling on a girl Sunday afternoons and remains until the dinner bell rings, accepting her invitation to dine. Company dinners are more expensive than the plain, wholesome meals the family sits down to. Mother thinks daughter has made a happy choice of a suitor, insisting that not one young man in a hundred would be so considerate of her daughter as to provide a carriage when he takes her to the theater, even if it's only a few blocks off. And he dresses with such perfect taste, and sends her flowers evenings he does not come.

    "That's sheer extravagance!" cuts in Uncle Ned. "It may do for a millionare, not knowing the need of money. It isn't the proper caper for a man who earns thirty per cent or so I'd think more of his counting his pennies if he thinks of marrying."

    Aunt Ellen fears he's inclined to flirt. She has seen him walking with young ladies and each one he seemed to pay marked attention to. One or two of the girls she mistrusted to be dreadful cobuettes. Her brother was of the opinion that he wasn't a stranger to the wine cup. He had run across him at a bar in a café! A chorus of "What took you there?" he silenced by a lame excuse, he stopped to buy a pack of cigarettes! The way he looked from one to the other said plainer than words that he hoped the cigarette part would be believed. By the time the family sum up the lover's faults they made it appear that the girl would take a hazardous chance on matrimony if she married him.