That, O my dear ladies, is a nobler attainment than all your French and music and dancing.

You may lose the very power of it by smothering it under a load of early self-indulgence.

By living just as you are all wanting to live,--living to be petted, to be flattered, to be admired, to be praised, to have your own way, and to do only that which is easy and agreeable,--you may lose the power of self-denial and self-sacrifice; you may lose the power of loving nobly and worthily, and become a mere sheet of blotting-paper all your life.
You will please to observe that, in all the married life of these two, as thus far told, all the accommodations, compliances, changes, have been made by John for Lillie.
_He_ has been, step by step, giving up to her his ideal of life, and trying, as far as so different a nature can, to accommodate his to hers; and she accepts all this as her right and due.
She sees no particular cause of gratitude in it,--it is what she expected when she married.

Her own specialty, the thing which she has always cultivated, is to get that sort of power over man, by which she can carry her own points and purposes, and make him flexible to her will; nor does a suspicion of the utter worthlessness and selfishness of such a life ever darken the horizon of her thoughts.
John's bills were graver than he expected.

It is true he was rich; but riches is a relative term.