to perform those household duties which fall to the lot of wives in humbler stations, or even personally to superintend their performance by your domestics; though a competent degree of domestic knowledge is no disgrace to ladies in the highest station, but confers on them an independence which is very desirable. The "virtuous woman," as described by Solomon, evidently occupied a high rank in society, perhaps that of nobility, if not of royalty, and had come under the notice and approbation of the monarch. It is no honour even to a lady of title to say of the meanest of her domestics, "I know nothing about her; I never even heard her name. I have nothing whatever to do with the inferior servants." Such a reply will not pass at the tribunal of God, when every one will be called upon to give an account of the duties devolving on him, and the influence resulting to him from the station in which Providence placed him. "What,” it has been asked, “are the duties of masters and mistresses? That they love their servants in a parental manner; that, prompted by this love, they attend to the good of their souls; that they give them their due reward; and that they treat them with mildness and forbearance."* This surely is not too much to expect from the head of a family. She, however, who faithfully discharges it, cannot affect the exalted ignorance above censured. She must know her servants, and their characters, and deserts, and performance of their duties. She must be acquainted with their circumstances and wants, that she may sympathize with and relieve them.

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* Freylinghausen, quoted by Gisborne.

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must be the actual guardian of their temporal, moral, and spiritual interests. This topic will be again distinctly adverted to; but it is introduced here for the sake of reminding the lady of birth that she, as well as the wife of the plebeian, has domestic duties, which claim her attention, and which will suitably and profitably occupy a portion of her time.

3. The lady who has time and resources at command, may stand in need of a caution against habits of dissipation, against spending life in one continued round of giving and receiving visits, and going here and there in eager chace of pleasure. Mr. Gisborne has well described the pleasure-loving lady of high life, both in town and country. Perhaps few of that class may condescend to peruse these pages; but, for the sake of these few, it may be well to lay before them remarks so well fitted to recall them to a sense of their duty.

"London is the centre to which almost all the individuals who fill the upper and middle ranks of society are successively attracted. The country pays its tribute to the supreme city. Business, interest, curiosity, the love of pleasure, the desire of knowledge, the thirst for change, the ambition to be deemed polite, occasion a continual influx into the metropolis from every corner of the kingdom. Hence a large and a widely dispersed and a continually increasing acquaintance is the natural consequence of frequent residence in London. If a married lady suffer herself to be drawn into the system of proceeding to which such an acquaintance is generally seen to lead, useful occupations and improving pursuits are either at an end, or

are carried on with extreme disadvantages, multiplied interruptions, declining activity, ardour, and satisfaction. The morning, the period at least which is called the morning, is absorbed in driving from street to street, from square to square, in pursuit of persons she is afraid of discovering, in knocking at doors where she dreads that she may be admitted. Time is frittered away in a sort of small intercourse with numbers, for whom she feels little regard, and whom she knows to feel as little for herself. Yet everything breathes the spirit of cordiality and attachment. The pleasure expressed at meeting is so warm, the reciprocal inquiries respecting health are so minute, the solicitude, if either party has caught a cold at the last opera, is so extreme; that a stranger to the ways of high life, and to the true value of words in the modern dictionaries of compliment, would be in astonishment at such effusions of disinterested benevolence. Invitation succeeds invitation; engagement presses on engagement; etiquette offers, form accepts, and indifference assumes the air of gratitude and rapture. Thus a continual progress is made in the looks, the language, and the feelings of insincerity. A lady thus busied, thus accomplished, becomes disinclined to friendship, or unqualified for it. She has too many acquaintances to be at leisure to have a friend. The unrestrained communication of sentiment, the concern of genuine sympathy, the manifestation of kind affections by deeds of kindness, require time, and calmness, and deliberation, and retirement. They require all that dissipation is least able and least willing to bestow."

4. As a check against this wretched waste of time, the same valuable writer recommends to married ladies in the higher classes a regular and well-arranged plan for the distribution of that precious "stuff that life is made of."

"Next to those principles of Christian 'sobriety,' which the Scriptures again and again inculcate on women, whether single or in matrimonial life, as well in precepts addressed immediately to the female sex, Titus ii. 4; 1 Tim. ii. 9—15; iii. 11; as in others directed to Christians in general, 1 Thess. v. 6,8; 1 Pet. i. 13-15; iv. 7; v. 8, etc.; one of the most powerful preservatives against this prevailing abuse of time, and all its unhappy effects on the mind, is a settled habit of methodical employment. Let it be founded on a fair review of the several duties daily to be performed, and of their relative nature and importance. In methodising time, as in all plans of life, let the standard which you propose to yourself be reasonable, if you I would find it useful. Proceed according to the plain dictates of common sense. Trace out to yourself the exact line which cool reflection tells you that you ought to follow, and endeavour to pursue it with accuracy. Remember your domestic duties; inform your mind; seek to advance in piety; be not snatched into the wild vortex of amusements; dare to refuse an invitation. not shaken from your rational purposes and rational modes of life, by the surprise, the ridicule, the specious but hollow arguments, of the giddy and dissipated of your own sex; who 'think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot,' 1 Pet. iv. 4; and like those whom the apostle

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describes, if they cannot persuade or allure you, will probably strive to 'speak evil of you.' Leave them to their folly and their unhappiness; and pursue steadily the dictates of your understanding and your conscience. Do good by exertion and by example; be a blessing to others and to yourself."

5. Ladies in the class of society here supposed, have especial need for caution in the choice of their associates; that they are not dazzled by rank, wealth, or fashion, and led to cultivate acquaintance where solid excellence is wanting, or to regulate the degree of intimacy and the cordiality of friendship, rather by rank than goodness. "Let your behaviour," says Mr. Gisborne, "to all your acquaintance be the result of modesty united with benevolence. Be obliging to all with whom you *associate; cultivate the friendship of the good; and stedfastly persist in shunning all habitual intercourse with persons of bad or of doubtful character, however complying others may be around you. To be thus complying, is to impair the salutary principle of shaming into obscurity the corrupting example of sin; it is to withdraw from virtue the collateral support which it derives from the dread of general disgrace. Be consistent in the selection of your associates; and proportion, as nearly as circumstances may allow, your intercourse with individuals to their intrinsic worth.

6. The regulation of domestic expenditure, and its proper subserviency to the obligations, means, and opportunities of doing good, ought to engage the serious and conscientious consideration of ladies in the higher ranks of society. "In all the domestic expenses, which are wholly, or in part,