University of Virginia Library

7. CHAPTER VII.
TO CURE, OR TO ENDURE?—THAT IS THE
QUESTION.

Surely the time will come in this country, where
the elements of general prosperity have not been
destroyed by the foolish combinations and wicked
monopolies of men, when the poor will have
less need of the passive virtues, and be sure of a
field and certain harvest for the active ones; when
no father, like poor Lee, will, by intemperance or
any other vice—for all vice is more or less destructive—prostrate
his family in the dust; when
physical, intellectual, and moral education will
have raised the level of our race, and brought it to
as near an approximation to equality of condition
as it is capable of in its present state of existence.
One important step to this happy result is in the
power of every mistress of a family. She must
first enter into the sentiment which was so well
expressed by Lord Chesterfield, who, in his last
will, in making some bequests to his servants, calls
them his “unfortunate friends, his inferiors in
nothing but position.”[1] When she realizes this,

she will make an effort to raise the character of
domestic labourers to the position they occupy in
a new order of things, and the new relations they
sustain among us.

Lucy was received at home with an outbreak of
joy that was not calmed till it was found her service
was not ended, but only to be transferred to
another place; and, as Mrs. Lee could not afford to
lose a day's earnings, it was decided that Lucy
should the next morning apply to Mrs. Ardley,
who might possibly still want her. Mrs. Lee's
objections to the place were overruled by her pressing
necessities. Early Monday morning Lucy
again set forth, and was most cordially received
by Mrs. Ardley. “You have come just in time,
my little girl,” she said; “I have had two in your
place; the one went away because the work was
too hard! Only six servants in the house, and
nothing but odds and ends to do! But she was a
lazy little mortal. The other went—I don't know
for what—some bagatelle. She and the cook quarrelled,
I believe—cooks are apt to be cross, you
know—but you must not mind that—I shut my
eyes to their faults if they will only cook my dinner
well. Do what she tells you, and don't run to
me with complaints. If my servants will get into

hot water, I beg I may not be scalded with it. I
wish you to be civil and obliging to everybody.
The waiter may impose a little now and then—he
will shirk sometimes—but he is so good I let him
do as he pleases. Try and please Sophy—she is
very good, though a little old maidish—but I never
cross her. Mind your p's and q's with the wet-nurse
—everybody must with a wet-nurse. Always be
ready to run an errand for Mary Minturn—she
hates to move off her chair. And always do what
Becky tells you—what she wants done must be
done. Be ready to do any little matter for the
children, and try to please everybody. There's no
hard work, you see—only odds and ends.” Lucy
had not experience enough to know that to work a
little in everybody's field is much harder than to
bring to perfection a corner of one. Mrs. Ardley's
kindly manner pleased her. “So different,” she
thought, “from crabbed Mrs. Broadson! so sociable!”
Mrs. Ardley's sociability was something
like a brimful cup, always running over upon what
chanced to be near her; however, to do her justice,
she was very kindly disposed, though from the
want of judgment and reflection her benevolence,
like waste steam, was lost in noisy and useless effusions.
Mrs. Ardley was the wife of a rich merchant.
She had always lived in affluence. As far
as she had thought about the matter, she believed
this was the station Providence had allotted her; and
she fancied also that there was a certain class born
to understand and perform domestic service, while
she and all in her category were to enjoy its results.
She knew no more of that science which every
woman should study, domestic economy, than the
Queen of France knew of political economy, when,
being told her people were clamorous for bread,
she asked, “Why, if there was no bread, did they
not give them cake?” Mrs. Ardley believed, in the
honesty of her heart, that when she had hired plenty
of servants, paid punctually the highest wages,
bestowed handsome presents, fed them not only
bountifully, but luxuriously, and never scolded, she
had performed the whole active and passive duty
of a mistress. In common with many others, she
imputed the jars and break-downs of her domestic
machinery to the imperfect mechanism of our society.
“Everybody had trouble with their servants;
of course she must expect it,” was the general
balm she applied to her domestic wounds.

Lucy one morning was summoned to bring the
baby down to show to some visiters, and the little
thing being charmed with the furs, feathers, and flowers
that decorated the gay guests, Lucy was bidden
to remain in the drawing-room, and, retiring to the
window, she heard, not inattentively, the following
conversation. “Do you keep the nursery-maid
you brought with you from Paris, Mrs. Hartell?”

“Dear! yes. I would not part with her on any
account. She speaks such pure Parisian French.
My next baby, I am resolved, shan't get the bad
habits of my other children—it shall speak French
first, and French always. I am very fortunate just
now; I have a French cook, and a jewel of a French
waiter.”

“But do not your other servants quarrel with
them?” asked Mrs. Ardley; “I had a French cook
once, and they made a perfect inferno below stairs.”

“Oh, n'importe!” replied Mrs. Hartell, shrugging

her shoulders, “what signifies an inferno below,
if you are in heaven above, as I truly am with
French cooking and waiting.”

“I am in a higher heaven than any of you,” said
a Mrs. Stedman, “since I went to board—I live in
perfect luxury—nothing in the world to do but get
up and enjoy myself.”

“Oh, as to that,” replied Mrs. Ardley, “I
never trouble myself about my domestic concerns;
what can't be cured must be endured, you know.”

“But can you teach your husband your philosophy?
does he not fret when he happens to find
you out when he comes home to dinner, and the
dinner not ready?”

“Never, dear Mrs. Stedman. My husband is
one of the best-tempered men in the world; besides,
of course, he knows it's all the servants' fault, and
there's no use in scolding them—if you dismiss one
set you only get a worse in their place. We long
ago made up our minds, that where there was no
remedy, it was wisest to submit with a grace.”

“There is one remedy, thank Heaven,” interposed
a Mrs. Linton; “we can break up and go to
board, as Mrs. Stedman has done, and as we shall
all have to do. I have been trying to persuade Mr.
Linton to it for the last year.”

“What is his objection?”

“Oh, he says he married to have a home—he
got a surfeit of boarding-houses when he was a
bachelor, &c., &c., so we shall have to worry on
a while longer; but I take special care to let him
know all the torment I have. There's nothing like
letting these men share the burden, to make them
willing to throw it off. So Mary Henry said, and

she never gave her husband any peace till he took
her to France.”

“Apropos!” interposed Mrs. Ardley, “I had
a letter yesterday from Mary Henry. They have
had a horrible time of it lately—been robbed by
their servants.”

“Bless me, how shocking! do they intend remaining
abroad?”

“Yes, till the girls are grown. She found her
housekeeping interfered too much with their education.
She was a Martha, you know, troubled
about many things.”

“Does she intend establishing her daughters
abroad?” asked a Mrs. Hyde, who had till now
listened in silence.

“No, indeed! She speaks with horror of the
state of society in Paris, and says she would rather
bury her daughters than marry them there.”

“Then there are worse social evils than the
household plagues of America?”

“Dear Mrs. Hyde! how sarcastic!”

“I did not intend a sarcasm. If the evils we
suffer are lighter than those that exist in other
countries, we should, I think, endure them without
complaint; and since they belong to a condition of
society in which our lot and our children's is cast,
it might be well to try to rectify them.”

“Excuse me!” exclaimed Mrs. Stedman, rising
to go, “I have washed my hands of the whole
concern, and never shall voluntarily resume housekeeping.”

“And excuse me!” said Mrs. Linton, seconding
her friend's movement, “I have made up my

mind to dismiss the crew and give up the ship!”
and laughing, she followed Mrs. Stedman.

“Chacun à son goût! (each one to his taste!)”
said Mrs. Hartell; “mine is not in your line, dear
Mrs. Hyde!” and she, too, took leave.

“Now they are gone,” said Mrs. Ardley, “I
must say, that if my husband was as fidgety as
Sam Stedman, I would give up housekeeping too
—or hang myself.” Mrs. Ardley and Mrs. Hyde
were old friends, and, in bygone days, schoolmates,
though Mrs. Hyde was by a few years the senior;
this made it easy for her to adopt the mentor style
without any appearance of assumption, a fault to
which there were indeed no tendencies in her character.
“No, Anne,” she replied, “no, you are of
too happy a temper to hang yourself in any extremity,
and you are too kind to drive others to
hanging; so, if your husband had been as fidgety
as Sam Stedman, you would have set about making
his home comfortable, and not abandoned it.”

“But how can a home be made what a fidgety
man calls comfortable, with such servants as we
have? Now, dear Mrs. Hyde, answer me that,”
said Mrs. Ardley, with the air of one who had
uttered a poser.

“By the mistress of the house doing her duty
understandingly and thoroughly. We must begin
at the foundation, Anne. In this country, where
often, in town, we have ignorant and ill-trained domestics,
and sometimes in the country none at all,
it is an indispensable duty to give our daughters a
thorough acquaintance with domestic affairs. It
seems to me we educate them for everything else
but the actual necessities of their social condition.”

“Oh, we may just as well save ourselves that
trouble. It don't depend at all on education; for
instance, you and I were brought up as much alike
as two girls could be, and you are a pattern housewife,
while I make no pretensions that way.” Before
detailing the conversation that followed, it will
be but just to concede what Mrs. Hyde's modesty
did not permit her to allow, that she was, in clearness
of mind and force of character, greatly Mrs.
Ardley's superior. Other things being equal, the
woman of the highest mental endowments will always
be the best housekeeper, for housewifery,
domestic economy, is a science that brings into
action the qualities of the mind as well as the
graces of the heart. A quick perception, judgment,
discrimination, decision, and order are high attributes
of mind, and are all in daily exercise in the
well-ordering of a family. If a “sensible woman,”
an “intellectual woman,” a “woman of genius,”
is not a good housewife, it is not because she is
all or either of these, but because there is some
deficiency in her character, or some omission of
duty which should make her very humble, instead
of her indulging any secret self-complacency on
account of a certain superiority, which only aggravates
her fault. Many women of very inferior
character make very comfortable housewives, but
why? they give their whole power to a single object.
All the rays of a feeble lamp thrown on one
point will produce a considerable illumination.

“You say, Anne,” replied Mrs. Hyde, “that
you and I were `brought up as much alike as two
girls could be,' and so we were. We went to the
same schools, pursued the same studies, and received

the same accomplishments. Great pains
were taken to make us attractive in a drawing-room
and amiable in our domestic relations. But,
as to the actual business of life, we were as little
trained for it as if we had been born in the royal
family of Persia, instead of being American girls,
who, whatever their fortune and condition are, will
be sure, in the progress of life, to be placed in situations
that call all their faculties into requisition.”

“Oh! some are and some are not.”

“All—all, Anne. The women of this country,
of every grade, are independent, self-directing beings.
The employers have certain untransferable
duties and the employed certain unquestionable
rights.”

“Do you mean mistresses and servants by employers
and employed?”

“Yes.”

“That is too absurd for such a sensible woman
as you, Sara. You got that flummery living up in
the country.”

“Perhaps I did get it sooner there than I otherwise
should. How can a person who contracts to
perform a certain labour under your roof, who
makes her own stipulations, and may leave you
with impunity at any moment, any more be called
your servant, in the old sense, than the builder who
builds your house, or the engineer who constructs
your roads?”

“How can they? Why they always have been
called servants—my servants do the same work
my grandmother's did, who were slaves—the same
work that servants do in other countries.”

“Yes, but is not their condition changed, and

does not that change the relation? Rely upon it,
we make a fatal mistake, not so much in retaining
old terms as in not fitting ourselves for the new
relation—”

“But stay, Sara, don't you call your servants
servants?”

“No, I call them domestics.”

“Heaven be praised! I expected you would
say help, which is quite too countrified, too like mechanics'
wives. But, honestly, don't you think servant
sounds more natural, and is the more convenient
name?”

“Yes; but I think the wishes of those who bear
the name should be consulted, and we all know
that servant is so disagreeable to them, especially
to the best among them, that it requires some courage
and a little hard-heartedness to use it in their
presence.”

“But is not much of this rank pride, Sara? Are
they not discontented with their subordinate condition,
and ought they not to learn that a person may
be as truly respectable in one grade as another?”

“Undoubtedly this would be a most valuable
lesson learned; but, since the world began, moralists
have been teaching, in some form or other, that

and yet how few have learned it. In our own
country, the apostle's rule is reversed; and `in
whatsoever condition you are, not to be therewith
content,' is the general experience. If, therefore,
all are trying to appear, if not to be something better
than they are, we ought not to be surprised at manifestations
of this spirit in the most ignorant class,
in those who, for the most part, have had fewest
opportunities for moral progress. The truth is, we
are in a transition state; the duties of which, as it
seems to me, are imperfectly understood; and as
to the names, he would be a benefactor who should
introduce those satisfactory to all parties.”

There was a short pause, during which Mrs.
Ardley hemmed as if something “stuck i' the
throat;” making an effort, she said, “I confess,
Sara, to hear you talk only, I should think you the
most absurd woman in the world; but then it's true,
that in spite of your theories, you do get on wonderfully
with your enormous family; but you always
have the luck of having such good servants! you
are almost the only one of my acquaintance I never
hear complaining. You must have a wonderful
knack! how have you acquired it? When you
were married, you knew no more of housekeeping
than I did.”

“No one could know less than I did, Anne—but
my circumstances since have been more favourable
to my improvement than yours. The first three or
four years of my marriage were imbittered by my
ignorance of domestic concerns. My husband,
as you know, is most kind-tempered and considerate,
but I saw him perpetually annoyed with the
consequences of my ignorance and inefficiency. I
was never indifferent to my household duties. I
felt my deficiencies and failures, and was perpetually
made uncomfortable by them. Still I tried
to persuade myself, as everybody else does, that
it was my servants' business to understand their
work. No one dares nowadays scold a servant;

but I remonstrated with them, I changed them, I
echoed the complaints I heard on every side, and
I verily believed housekeeping the bitterest curse
of a woman's existence. My three eldest girls
were born within the four first years of my marriage.
My cares, of course, multiplied rapidly, and made
me all but miserable. My husband was most indulgent.
He forbore inviting his friends to his
house, because I had, upon two or three occasions,
been mortified and made unhappy by dinners illserved
to our friends. We could not afford to hire
extra servants, and I had not yet learned to supply
my people's ignorance by my own knowledge, and
to provide against their shiftlessness by my own
foresight. So all the advantages and pleasures of
hospitality were foregone.”

“I am sure, Sara, I remember your giving parties.”

“Yes—one, perhaps two, I did give, because
we must keep our place in society, and this was
the easiest contribution I could pay. You can hire
skilful people, you know, for such occasions, and
get through them without feeling disgraced—disgraced,
Anne, I confess I did in my secret soul feel,
for I was conscious that my miseries arose, for
the most part, from my own defects. I look back,
even now, with bitter regret to the social duties
that my ignorance, my utter incompetency compelled
me to forego.”

“Dear Sara, that is superfluous misery, I am
sure—who ever did perform so many social duties?
I have often wondered how you, with your ten
children, could think of taking your two nephews
into your family, and that little sickly orphan girl.”

“Ah, Anne, we cannot make one duty performed
a substitute for one omitted.”

“Dear me! then you may as well omit them
altogether, as I do. But, pray tell me when this
new light dawned upon your affairs? Perhaps it
was a northern light, up in that barbarous country
you removed to?”

“You are right; it was. My husband's affairs
compelled us to remove to the St. Lawrence. My
nurse was the only person that I could, for love or
money, persuade to go with me. Love was her
motive. Love, not only for the children, but for
us; for before this time I had got on a little in my
domestic self-education, and had learned to treat
Clara Lane as my friend.”

“Bless me! did mammy live with you so long
ago?”

“Yes; she it was who taught me not only to
appreciate the virtue, but to estimate the power,
and respect the dignity of a domestic labourer.
Are you not tired, Anne?”

“Dear! no—pray tell me how you got on in
that wilderness.”

“At first, badly enough. When we were within
six miles of our home, Ella was taken ill. We
stopped at a log-hut; she was too ill to proceed.
There was but one bed that the people could, for
any consideration, spare. I wished to remain with
my sick child, but the mistress of the hut said `No,
unless I could cook my own victuals, make the
child's porridge, and do my own waiting on—the
nurse was welcome to stay, but folks warn't plenty
enough up there to run after ladies!”'

“What a brute!”

“Not at all. It was the plain truth coarsely told.
Oh, how much I would then have given for mammy's
faculties—my servants', Anne! There was
no alternative, and I was obliged to go on, with
the consciousness that I should be as useless in
my own home as at the log-hut. However, I had
health and unimpaired strength, and the cheerfulness
they generate. I was beginning to profit by
the lessons of necessity, `our sternest teacher and
our best!' There were no domestic labourers to
be obtained. I cannot describe to you my woful
condition, nor my family's, when we were first reduced
to depending on my culinary skill. Oh, how
I broiled over my first beefsteak, dropped it in the
ashes, and blistered my fingers, my poor husband
standing by the while sympathizing and laughing;
my potatoes I served as hard as they were dug out
of the earth! The first day we borrowed bread
from my husband's farmer, our only neighbour; the
next, mammy not coming, I was compelled to make
some. I was ashamed to ask directions of our
neighbour Mrs. Stone; I thought it must be a simple
operation, and I knew, as I supposed, the materials
of which it was composed. I kneaded and baked
it, after calling my husband from important business
to heat and clear my oven. Anne, you would have
pitied my consternation if you had seen me when
I drew the bread from the oven. It was as solid
and as heavy as a brickbat. I cried, my husband
laughed, his patience was inexhaustible; I then
laughed too, threw away my bread, tied my right
arm in a sling, sent for Mrs. Stone, and said, `You
see my condition—will you mix some bread for
me?' She set about it with alacrity; I watched

every step of the process, and found I had omitted
the yeast in my composition! I went a little
further in my artifice, for I was in a position to be
as much ashamed of my ignorance of the domestic
arts as a professed amateur would be if found at
fault in the fine arts. Good Mrs. Stone vaunted
her emptyings, as the country folk call yeast; she
`always,' she said, `calculated to have lively emptyings.'
`So do I, ma'am,' said I, `but I should like
to know how you make yours.' `Oh, I make them
like other people, I guess, but some always have
better luck than others!' I was determined to secure
her luck, if possible, and so I said, `I should
like to know exactly how she made hers—perhaps
her way was different from our city way.' I shall
never forget her reply, for it was my first introduction
to the indefiniteness of unwritten receipts. `I
hang on my kettle of water,' she said, `throw in
some hops and potatoes according to my judgment,
and when they have boiled long enough, I strain
the liquor into some rye flour, if I have it, and put
lively emptyings to it!' Here, as you perceive,
was neither time nor quantity; but, by means of a
cross-examination which would not have disgraced
a lawyer, I elicited the necessary information; and
when on my next baking-day I presented my first
fair, light loaf to my husband, I was a proud and
happy woman!”

“Oh, I have always thought,” said Mrs. Ardley,
“if I lived in the country, I should like to attend to
domestic concerns—there is nothing else there,
you know, to occupy you.”

Mrs. Hyde smiled. She thought of the rational
and elegant pursuits that had occupied her in the

country, but she did not advert to them. As all
preachers should do who hope to produce an effect
by a single discourse, she confined herself to one
topic. “Yes, Anne,” she said, “I soon began to
find pleasure in my domestic concerns. I was
often compelled to be an actual operator, for in a
new country labour is too precious to be bought
with money; but I was every day learning, and in
no department is the acquisition of knowledge more
certainly power than in this. Mountains were
soon levelled down to molehills. Labours that, at
first, exacted all my time, strength, and thoughts,
became easy by repetition; and I had not resided
six months at Hydedale before I was able to despatch
my household business within the two hours
prescribed by Madame Roland.”

“Madame Roland!—the celebrated Madame
Roland? for pity's sake, what had she to do with
household business?”

“She administered family affairs with a very
small income, and she was at the head of an immense
establishment, and in both positions she says
her domestic duties were comprised within two
hours.”[2]

“Dear! yes, with French servants; but, if I understand
you, you had not even American servants.”

“You forget. Mammy was always with me;
and when I could get no one else, she insisted on

relieving me from the roughest of the work, though
she had only contracted for the duties of nurse.
But she was my friend—my help in all things, and
I treated her accordingly. If she had been treated
as many ladies think it necessary to treat
their domestics, she would not have stayed with
me a month; and why should she? The money we
paid her could have been far more easily earned
elsewhere; but our gratitude and our affection
were make weights against which no scale would
have preponderated, though heaped with gold. I
remember a circumstance which mammy certainly
never will forget, that occurred one day when we
had some New-York friends with us. Sabina Rayson
was one of them. I was baking a pudding, and
my dish was nearly as large as my bakepan; in that
case, you know—no, you do not know—for I suppose,
Anne, you never baked a pudding in your life.”

“Bless you, no—and I trust I never shall.”

“Well, if you ever had, you would understand
the dilemma I was in. I could not take out my
pudding without risking the burning of my fingers.
Sabina passed through my kitchen just as I was
worrying over it. Mammy stood by, looking on.
Sabina stopped to watch my progress, and exclaimed
involuntarily, `Why do you plague yourself
with that, Sara? Why don't you let mammy
burn her fingers?' Now, you know, Sabina has
both sense and kindness; but she had always
looked upon domestics as half the world do, as
persons created expressly to minister to our pleasure,
to burn their fingers for us; and when I replied,
`If anybody, Sabina, is to burn her fingers
with the pudding that my friends and I are to eat,

it should be me, and not mammy,' she said, `Well,
you are the oddest woman!' and retreated to the
parlour to laugh at my peculiarities.”

“I do not wonder it struck Sabina as strange—
but in the situation you were in—so dependant on
mammy—you were quite right.”

“I should have been right in any situation, my
dear Anne. Sabina's exclamation is a most apt illustration
of the abuses of nine tenths of the world
of this relation. It has passed into a proverb with
me, and scarcely a day goes by that I am not reminded
of those unlucky words, `Why don't you
let mammy burn her fingers?”'

Mrs. Ardley did not quite admit her friend's inferences,
but she was entertained with her facts.
“Had you no one but mammy,” she asked, “all
the time you lived at Hydedale?”

“Yes, occasional services I could always procure;
for though, as I told you, money would not
buy labour, yet our farmers' girls said, `Mr. and
Mrs. Hyde had such friendly ways that they loved
to work for them,' and mammy, always a favourite,
was a sort of decoy bird to them. You may have
seen my seamstress Paulina.”

“The nice girl you told me made the children's
dresses?”

“The same. She was a poor child whom I took,
in country phrase, `to bring up.' A treasure she
has proved. She is now so accomplished that she
can earn more than I can afford to pay her, and
she is about leaving me to go as a first hand to a
dressmaker.”

“Then you do meet with ingratitude as well as
the rest of the world?”

“I have, certainly, no ingratitude to complain of
from Paulina. I have had hard work to persuade
her to leave me, and she consents only on condition
that I permit her to return if she cannot learn to
content herself away from us.”[3]

“What a pity!” said Mrs. Ardley, whom the
common way of looking at such subjects seemed
to have rendered incapable of seeing them in Mrs.
Hyde's point of view, “what a pity she did not
keep to plain sewing—could you not prevent her
learning dressmaking.”

“Certainly. But a poor girl has it hard enough
getting her living by her needle at the most profitable
work; so I made her avail herself of every opportunity
of learning of my dressmaker.”

“Do you never consider yourself?”

“Yes, Anne, most effectively. I most certainly
benefit myself by promoting the improvement of
those under my care. I have often wondered that
housekeepers in the country do not more frequently
secure help by taking children `to bring up.'
Young children may always be obtained; and care
and kindness, while they are too young to render
much service, is amply paid afterward. A child
taken from a vicious family, or from a shiftless,
ignorant, or overburdened mother, may thus be
saved not only as far as concerns the self-preserving
virtues that are brought into action in this
world, but, reaping the fruits of a moral and religious
education, she may be saved in a higher
sense. In getting new domestics I prefer young

ones—young subjects can be remoulded and taught.
You can inspire them with confidence, and make
them zealous fellow-workers with you in their own
improvement. Those who have come to years
of maturity, especially foreigners, have minds so
stinted, and such inveterate bad habits, that it is
very difficult to make them comfortable members
of a little family community, regulated upon principles
of reciprocal affection and confidence.”

“But, dear Sara, what a task must all this teaching
be!”

“And what a harvest, Anne! Depend upon it, my
dear friend, there is no happiness like that of energetically
employing our faculties to achieve some
good end?”

“Yes, you are very right; but then the object
must be worth the exertion. Now, to confess the
truth to you—do not be offended, Sara—I do not
mean to apply it to you—you are so superior to
most women, that it is different with you—but in
general, I mean, it does appear to me very vulgar
for ladies to—to—to work—sweep a room, for instance—roast
a turkey! horrible!”

“There will seldom be occasion for a lady to
perform drudgery herself who thoroughly understands
it, for this very knowledge will enable her
to direct the services of others. But I would have
every girl practice enough to be able to help herself
in the emergencies that are constantly occurring,
and to teach the ignorant, whose ignorance,
mark, if she cannot enlighten, she must endure. A
woman may employ a vast deal of talent in the administration
of her family affairs. I think it was
Paulus Emilius who said it required as much genius

to order an entertainment as to draw up an
army. And, Anne, if our young ladies want the
example of heroines to redeem domestic offices
from their vulgarity, to idealize the housewife—let
them remember Andromache, and Desdemona, and
sundry others. For a champion to my cause, there
is the old Roman Cato, who, Plutarch tells us, was
followed to the wars by only one servant; and when
this servant was weary, Cato would cook the dinner—`roast
a turkey,' perchance—if he could get
one. Seriously, my dear Anne, do not let us consider
any occupation so vulgar as indolence and inanity.
How many lives are consumed in utter
frivolity! A little light reading, a little needlework,
a little shopping, visiting, dressing, and undressing,
and so day after day passes away. You
and I, Anne, know a great many who perform well
their domestic duties without their interfering with
what are called higher pursuits. But I do not know
how there can well be a higher pursuit than the
improvement and happiness of those who are placed
by Providence in those little primary schools, over
which we, in virtue of our characters as mothers and
mistresses, preside. Let us try to train our girls
for this their happiest sphere—to prepare them to
be the ministers of Providence to the more ignorant
children of the human family.”

Mrs. Hyde was interrupted from an unexpected
quarter. Lucy Lee had, unobserved, listened; during
the last sentences she had drawn nearer and
nearer, and now she involuntarily exclaimed, “How
like mother she does talk!”

“A compliment!” cried Mrs. Ardley, laughing,
and she bade Lucy take the baby up stairs.

The simplicity of the girl pleased Mrs. Hyde, and
her sweet countenance was stamped on her memory.
“It is fortunate for you, Anne,” she said,
“that my harangue was interrupted; when we
mount our hobbies, we are apt to jade our friends.
The truth is, I often think reflection would bring
others to the result to which necessity brought me.”

“It may be, Sara. You have certainly given me
some new ideas. I have heretofore thought only
of enduring the evil, never of curing it.”