This section may properly close with the following judicious remarks by Mrs. Taylor.

"If housekeepers, where it is possible, would put that work out which cannot be performed at home without extra help, they would find their account in it. Many a worthy girl has been corrupted, and eventually ruined, by those people who have access to families, as char-women, etc.; they are too frequently depredators in the houses which they frequent; and it is well, if in time they do not prevail upon the servant to assist in their nefarious practices: where they do nothing worse, it is too frequently their custom to prejudice servants against their places; and from these and similar objections, many judicious and experienced persons will on no account suffer them to enter their houses.

"But, notwithstanding all our endeavours to obtain and to keep good servants, we shall generally find much devolve upon ourselves; and those certainly should not complain of the remissness of their domestics, who are themselves deficient in the art of management. A little activity on the part of a mistress, especially where but one servant is kept, will give an agreeable finish to the appearance of a house, and prevent many a reprimand for inattention to the minutiæ, from which those, at least, who have a redundancy of work, ought to be exempted.

"In every kitchen there should be a library, for which a judicious selection of books will be requisite, and nothing beyond the comprehension of kitchen readers admitted: but none in the present day need be at a loss for appropriate works, when,

beside other things, so many excellent tracts may be procured for the instruction of the poor. Perhaps Mrs. More's 'Cheap Repository' would stand pre-eminent in such a collection; as the lessons there given, and the examples exhibited, judiciously blend amusement with instruction. And here let me drop a hint respecting the choice of such publications: many well-meaning and zealous Christians really counteract the good they intend to do, by refusing to distribute those which are of a lively and entertaining nature, forgetting that the readers they wish to serve require to be enticed to peruse, that they take the alarm at an introduction too serious, and rarely then go on to the end. Such persons have been known to throw away tracts put into their hands, merely from a sight of their solemn and injudicious titles.

Our Saviour pursued a different course, frequently introducing parables of a very entertaining kind : and were these zealous disciples to study human nature in general, and especially the heart in its unconverted state, they might perceive the utility of those innocent baits which more judicious Christians may set to catch souls. They appear not sufficiently to distinguish between their own sensations, which revolt at everything that is not expressly serious, and the sensations of those who revolt still more against all that is.*

"But to return from this digression, let those

*Since the above remarks were written by Mrs. Taylor, the Religious Tract Society has issued various publications, as will be seen by the Society's Catalogue, from which a "Kitchen Library" may be selected, at a comparatively small

expense.

who are possessed of such a treasure as a good servant, duly estimate their privilege, and be neither too rigid in their requirements, nor too sparing in their rewards. It is poor encouragement to a servant, if she is invariably blamed for what is wrong, and never praised for what is right: and some respect should be paid to the feelings of human nature, which will not endure continual chiding, however deserving of it; both praises and rewards should be suitably dispensed; and if, when there is occasion to complain, appeals to reason were more frequent than they generally are, such reproof might have a gradual tendency to improve the character. The old domestic attached to a family, whose best days have been spent in faithful services, is a lovely character, and entitled to every indulgence: and when an honest and tractable disposition is observed in the young, selfinterest alone would dictate an endeavour to rear a servant of this description, by care and kindness, by mingling patience and forbearance with instruction or reproof. It is scarcely necessary to add, that a good example must be set by the mistress, in order to give effect to her injunctions; for if her own character is turbulent and disorderly, she has little reason to anticipate regularity and comfort from her domestics.

"An additional hint to those young mistresses, who have not the knowledge requisite for their situation, but who, conscious of their deficiency, wish to acquire it, shall close this subject. A young and ignorant mistress will rarely have a servant from whom she may not gain, by unobserved attention, some useful hints: from her last

place something is generally brought that will turn to account; and there are those who have obtained much of their domestic knowledge from this source. It is tedious and precarious; but if necessary information can be obtained, those who are destitute of it should not be too proud, or too indolent, to avail themselves of every opportunity for acquiring it."

CHAPTER IX.

SOCIETY AND RECREATIONS.

MAN is a social creature, and so is woman too. It has sometimes been querulously asked, when the duties of home have been pressed upon a married woman, "And are married women never to go abroad? are they to be confined to the storeroom, and to the nursery, as to a nunnery or a prison?" No: this is not required of them; though it will be found that the best and happiest wives and mothers are those who, without any irksome feeling of confinement, are so constantly, and agreeably, and usefully employed at home, that it requires a very clear and imperative call of duty to get them abroad, and a very strenuous effort on their parts to comply with it; and, even then, they can hardly take their hearts with them, but in the midst of society are "stung with the thought of home."

It

But let it be conceded that society has claims and attractions even for a married woman. will be wise at the outset, when the arrangement is, more than ever afterwards, in her own power, so to regulate matters as to secure unbroken the