entered. Should the wife of a tradesman perceive such indications of growing prosperity as lead her to think of the probability of a retreat from business, she will do well to direct her own attention, and that of her husband, towards a preparation for it: not merely, or principally, by attempting to catch the manners of fashion and gentility—an attempt which is often most awkwardly overdone, and completely fails-but by cultivating the mind, by enlarging the round of observation, by collecting valuable information on general subjects, and especially by familiarizing the mind, and heart, and hand, with acts, and habits, and plans of benevolent usefulness. If, as is probably the case, the early education of either party, or of both, has been defective and circumscribed, endeavour to supply the deficiency, by cultivating a taste for reading, and by a judicious selection of books, such books as really tend to enlarge and elevate the mind. And then, in looking forward to a retreat from business, do not let the retreat and the leisure contemplated be those of indolence, luxury, and self-indulgence; but let it be the leisure for self-improvement and active benevolence, the opportunity more extensively and uninterruptedly to gain good and do good.

The wife of a prosperous tradesman is called upon to exert a judicious and salutary influence with her husband, as to the education of their children. There are two opposite mistakes incident to parents who have risen in life. Some undervalue the advantages of a regular education, and penuriously withhold, or, at best, but grudgingly bestow them on their children, triumphantly

At ten years Why should school? My Why should

appealing to their own success as a proof that learning is unnecessary. "I never learned a rule of grammar; and what am I the worse for it? Who has succeeded better in trade? old I was getting my own living. my boys be wasting their time at school learning never cost a pound. I spend hundreds on the education of my children ?" Other parents suppose, that in the business of education, everything may be had for money; and, as they can afford to pay for everything, they wish their children to learn everything that the schoolmaster or the governess professes to teach; whether or not they have any taste or ability for the pursuit, and whether or not the attainment is likely in any way to be useful to them. The items are set down in the school bill; the bill is paid; and the parents are satisfied that they have given their children a good education. It is the part of good sense to guard against both these errors; and as the wife is generally supposed to have great influence in the matter, it is mentioned here for the sake of entreating her to employ it.

The wife of a tradesman has frequently charge of young men and lads, as assistants or apprentices. This is no small addition to her cares and responsibilities. It is sometimes felt to be a great interruption to social domestic intercourse, and calls for the exercise of no ordinary degree of good temper, discretion, and self-possession, to guard at once against anything like haughty moroseness, and unkind indifference, on the one hand; and impertinent, tattling familiarity, on the other. The following paragraph, from a volume entitled,

"The Women of England," well deserves the attention of the parties addressed :-" Many chapters might be filled with the duties of tradesmen's wives towards the young people employed in their husband's affairs, and the responsibility attaching to them for the tone of moral character which such persons exhibit through the whole of their after lives. Of how little value, in this point of view, is the immense variety of accomplishments generally acquired at school, compared with the discrimination and tact that would enable a woman to extend her influence among the class of persons here described, and the principle that would lead her to turn such influence to the best account! How many a mother's heart would be made glad, by finding, when her son returned to his home, that he had experienced something of a mother's kindness from his master's wife; and how many a father would rejoice, that his child had been preserved from the temptations of a city life, by the good feeling that was cherished and kept alive at his master's fireside!"

CHAPTER VI.

CONDUCT TO FAMILY CONNEXIONS.

A HINT or two has already been dropped as to the intercourse of a wife with relatives and friends; but the subject is of sufficient importance to demand a distinct reference.

"That our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace," Psa. cxliv. 12, was the devout aspiration of the royal psalmist, in evident and beautiful allusion to the cementing together, by their instrumentality, of the families of which they originally formed a part, and those with which they contract an alliance by marriage.

"By daughters," says the excellent Matthew Henry on the passage, "families are united and cemented together to their mutual strength, as the parts of a building are by the corner stones." He further speaks of their being "well established and stayed with wisdom and discretion, as corner stones are fastened in a magnificent building;" and of their being "by faith united to Christ the chief corner stone, and adorned by the graces of the Spirit, which are the polishing of that which is naturally rough."

"Daughters," says the judicious Mr. Scott, "prudent, virtuous, healthful, industrious, amia

ble, fitted to fill the important relations of wife and mother, would be the ornament of their own families, and of those into which they are married, and form the bond of union between them, as polished corner stones beautify and strengthen the building." May each reader of these pages be enabled honourably to carry out the beautiful figure in every particular! But the immediate object of reference, at present, is the connecting together of two families, and the especial duties resulting to her who is the bond of union between them.

As to the family of your husband. It is true, you are married not to them, but to him; but you are brought into a very near connexion with them, and on the propriety of your deportment to them will depend much of your own happiness, and of the entireness and continuance of your husband's satisfaction and esteem. In like manner, it may be said of your family: your husband is married not to them, but to you. Nevertheless, your happiness will be very materially affected by the sentiments he cherishes, and the conduct he manifests, towards them; and these will be greatly influenced by the impression he receives from you. In this respect, perhaps more than any other, a married woman is in a great degree the keeper of her own happiness.

The course to be pursued by the young married woman, in this particular, will be more or less obvious, in proportion to the length and intimacy of acquaintance previously subsisting between the families. It may be, that the parents of both families have been for many years on a footing of