it not inconvenient; be always elegant, but not too expensive, in your dress; retain your present exquisite delicacy of every kind; receive his friends with good-breeding and complacency; contrive such little parties of pleasure as you know are agreable to him, and with the most agreable people you can select:  be lively even to playfulness in your general turn of conversation with him; but, at the same time, spare no pains so to improve your understanding, which is an excellent one, as to be no less capable of being the companion of his graver hours:  be ignorant of nothing which it becomes your sex to know, but avoid all affectation of knowledge:  let your oeconomy be exact, but without appearing otherwise than by the effect.

Do not imitate those of your sex who by ill temper make a husband pay dear for their fidelity; let virtue in you be drest in smiles; and be assured that chearfulness is the native garb of innocence.

In one word, my dear, do not lose the mistress in the wife, but let your behaviour to him as a husband be such as you would have thought most proper to attract him as a lover:  have always the idea of pleasing before you, and you cannot fail to please.

Having lectured you, my dear Lucy, I must say a word to Temple:  a great variety of rules have been given for the conduct of women in marriage; scarce any for that of men; as if it was not essential to domestic happiness, that the man should preserve the heart of her with whom he is to spend his life; or as if bestowing happiness were not worth a man’s attention, so he possessed it:  if, however, it is possible to feel true happiness without giving it.

You, my dear Temple, have too just an idea of pleasure to think in this manner:  you would be beloved; it has been the pursuit of your life, though never really attained perhaps before.  You at present possess a heart full of sensibility, a heart capable of loving with ardor, and from the same cause as capable of being estranged by neglect:  give your whole attention to preserving this invaluable treasure; observe every rule I have given to her, if you would be happy; and believe me, the heart of woman is not less delicate than tender; their sensibility is more keen, they feel more strongly than we do, their tenderness is more easily wounded, and their hearts are more difficult to recover if once lost.

At the same time, they are both by nature and education more constant, and scarce ever change the object of their affections but from ill treatment:  for which reason there is some excuse for a custom which appears cruel, that of throwing contempt on the husband for the ill conduct of the wife.

Above all things, retain the politeness and attention of a lover; and avoid that careless manner which wounds the vanity of human nature, a passion given us, as were all passions, for the wisest ends, and which never quits us but with life.

There is a certain attentive tenderness, difficult to be described, which the manly of our sex feel, and which is peculiarly pleasing to woman:  ’tis also a very delightful sensation to ourselves, as well as productive of the happiest consequences:  regarding them as creatures placed by Providence under our protection, and depending on us for their happiness, is the strongest possible tie of affection to a well-turned mind.