A lawyer will marry a fair client. I might add that he is the more likely to do so if he is settling up a large estate for her.
A physician rarely marries a patient. If your heart is set upon a certain physician do not play the rôle of an invalid. When you are sick you should have a married physician. A young lady was taken ill with pneumonia. Her family were strangers in the place, and, without knowing it, called in an unmarried physician. He was interested in the case, but not in the least in her. A year later he met her, when in perfect health, at the house of a mutual friend and fell in love with her.
Living next door to each other will often make young people interested in each other. Church-work which brings young men and maidens together is fruitful of many marriages. A young man was put on a fair-table with a number of ladies. He fell in love with the only unmarried one on it. A young clergyman comes in contact with so many girls, and is so run after, that going to his church and entering into the work for his sake is but lost labor. If you want to work in a Church, do it for the Lord, without a thought of who has charge of that body of worshippers.
We learn from Abelard and Heloise what the pupil will become to the teacher. Almost always, when neither are married, free lessons in love accompany another kind of a lesson—that is, if the lessons are private. Men fall in love with a lady who teaches them anything. A young lady was taught Hebrew by an unmarried clergyman. They married about a year after the lessons began.
A man and woman who are in business together almost always marry. An author has been known to marry her publisher. A Mr. Maxwell published Miss Braddon’s novels, and now she is Mrs. Maxwell. Margaret Sydney is the nom de plume of a writer who married her publisher, Daniel Lothrop, of Lothrop and Co.
An almost certain way to win a man’s love is to win his confidence. When a man talks to a woman about his greatest interest, he becomes interested in her. When he opens his whole heart to her, he gives her that heart. I never knew this to fail. How to win this confidence is the puzzle. The very man you want may be the one who knows the most about keeping his affairs to himself. You will have to use tact and patience in drawing him out. Get him to talk about his business, or make him talk of his books, his pleasures, his family: always about himself. Persist in this gently. Show him you can keep a secret. Encourage him to talk about himself until he touches upon something that is nearest his heart. Some men will do this sooner than others. The man who readily confides in you, readily falls in love—and almost as readily falls out. It is said that the heart which is easily won is hard to keep; and that the heart which is hard to win you never lose. When you have drawn any man to tell you his heart unreservedly, he is yours.
A young man was in love with a girl of whom his mother did not approve. He was much distressed by the fuss she made. He did not want to give up the girl or to pain his mother. He must talk of his trouble to some one, and he selected a young girl who was visiting the family. He told her all his troubles. She encouraged him with infinite tact until he spoke unreservedly. Whenever he could find her alone he talked of that and of nothing else. Then he planned to be alone with her. Before three months he loved her better than he did the first one.
CHAPTER VI.
A WORD OF WARNING.
The greatest mistake a girl can make is to allow familiarities from men. A girl must be circumspect in her conduct. She must be self-respecting. Having a proper self-respect and being a prude are two different things. A man never likes a prude. He never, in his heart, cares for one who has no self-respect. A man, of a certain class, will pay her attention and take advantage of the liberties she allows, but he never marries her.
You are not safe if you allow the least digression from the right path. A slip once made can never be recalled, and the second follows very easily on the first. Then comes the third, and so on, till ruin is the end for you—not for him.