able furniture tossed about without decency and without care. No fortune can answer such immoderate expenses; no comfort can consist with so much disorder. A good woman "looketh well to the ways of her household, and all her family are clothed in scarlet." (Prov. xxxi.)

CHAPTER V.

ON DRESS.

LET me entreat, gentle lady, that your dress may be expressive of delicacy and purity of mind. Behold a woman in the attire of a harlot! exclaimed the wise man on beholding an indecorous dress. And surely when a woman appears in public with bare bosom, exposure of figure, perhaps with rouged cheeks, it cannot be acting too severely to adopt the same language, and cry out in disgust, Behold a woman in the attire of a harlot!' What! a wife, a mother, in such a dress! O, all ye feelings of virtue and propriety, rescue our British matrons from the degradation! Would they but reflect for a moment, "could women in general," as Mrs. H. More says, "know what was their real interest, could they

guess with what a charm even the appearance of modesty invests its possessor, they would dress decorously from mere selflove if not from principle. The designing would assume modesty as an artifice; the coquette would adopt it as an allurement; the pure as her appropriate attraction; and the voluptuous as the most infallible art of seduction."

There is not an hour in the day in which a man so much likes to see his wife dressed with neatness, as when she leaves her bedroom, and sits down to breakfast. At any other moment, vanity stimulates her efforts at the toilette, for she expects to see and to be seen; but at this retired and early hour, it is for the very sake of cleanliness, for the very sake of pleasing her husband, that she appears thus neat and nice. Some one says, "A woman should never appear untidily or badly dressed, when in the presence of her husband." While he was your lover, what a sad piece of business if he caught you dressed to disadvantage! “Oh dear, there he is, and my hair all in papers; and this frightful unbecoming cap! I had no idea he would have been here so early; let

I

me off to my toilette!" But now that he is your husband, "Dear me, what consequence? My object is gained; my efforts to win him, and all my little manoeuvres to captivate, have been successful, and it is very hard if a woman is to pass her life in endeavouring to please her husband!" I remember greatly admiring a lady who lived among the mountains, and scarcely saw any one but her husband. She was rather a plain woman; and yet when she sat to breakfast each morning, and all the day long, her extreme neatness and attention to the niceness of her appearance, made her quite an agreeable object; and her husband loved her, and would look at her with more pleasure than at a pretty woman dressed soiled and untidily for believe me, those things (though your husband appears not to notice them, nor perhaps is he himself conscious of the cause) strongly possess the power of pleasing or displeasing.

I have a great dislike to see a woman's dress exceed the expense which I know her husband can afford. Fine laces and silks and a scanty purse are ill-matched associates. When I hear a woman of small fortune say

her pelisse or lace cap cost a large sum, I at once think it a libel not only on her understanding but her principles.

I will now conclude this subject with the Apostle's sentiment, when speaking of Christian wives: Whose adorning," says he, "let it not be that OUTWARD adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; but let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price." (1 Pet. iii. 1, 3, 4.)

These words " a MEEK and QUIET spirit,” make at this moment a most powerful impression on my mind, and have excited the following reflections, to which, gentle lady, I beg to direct your attention. It is not to be supposed the Apostle alluded to the meek and quiet spirit which is so often produced by nature or constitution, or perhaps by insensibility, and which costs us nothing to attain. Oh, no! the meekness and quietness he speaks of must be the effect, not of constitution but of principle; not of nature, but of grace. I know many women who would be gentle Pagans as well as gentle Christians: who