early because of the direct help it will be to her to have a daughter-in-law to help her work. It should be remembered that the young couple live in the house with the boy's parents, and so his wife means one more servant in the family. To the mother-in-law she is a real slave, it being one of the very first duties of every wife to serve well the parents of her husband in whatever capacity they may require.
Marriage is always arranged by parties other than those who are most affected by it. There are in every community persons known as go-betweens whose business it is to make matches and arrange engagements. This go-between deals with the parents of the contracting parties, and not with the parties themselves. In many cases the parents make the bargain without the services of the go-between. But that individual scores a victory, and one that counts for something financially, when some one has an undesirable boy that must have a wife; or when some fond parent has a daughter that is steadily growing old and no one cares to take her off his hands, it is then that she gets in her most telling work. Many interesting stories are told of how these shrewd old women manage to deceive the parents of some candidates for a bride by working off one that is lame, hunchbacked, deaf, or even blind or, worse still, idiotic. Thus it may happen that a boy brings his bride home to learn that she is entirely unsuited to be his wife because of some physical or mental deformity. And it may just as often happen that the bride resting her eyes for the first time on her lord and master will be shocked at his ugliness or deform-
