With what

inflict. Is his income stinted? cleverness will a wife of this description act, and economise, and endeavour to abridge her expenses; sitting down with such cheerfulness to her scanty meal, suffering privations that probably she never was accustomed to, concealing their poverty from the world, and endeavouring to gild it over with a genteel and respectable appearance; nursing and educating her children, and assuming perhaps in the same day the varied character of gentlewoman, preceptress, and housewife; and yet insensibility to her merit, ofttimes unkind language, is perhaps the return she receives from her unworthy husband.

How often is a woman grieved by the foolish extravagance of her husband. When once a man has entered the marriage state, he should look on his property as belonging to his family, and act and economise accordingly. I remember being acquainted with a gentleman who was constantly saying, "It is true, my property is large; but then it belongs not to myself alone, but also to my children and I must act as a frugal agent for them. To my wife, as well as those children, I feel accountable either for economy or extravagance." Another gentleman of my

acquaintance, who was in stinted circumstances, was constantly debarring himself of a thousand little comforts, sooner than infringe on what he used to call his children's birthright.

The three following remarks, from the pen of the excellent Mrs. Taylor, are well worth attention.- "To what sufferings are those wives exposed, who are not allowed a sufficiency to defray the expenses of their establishment, and who never obtain even their scanty allowance, but at the price of peace! Men who act in this way often defeat their own intentions; and by constant opposition render their wives lavish and improvident, who would be quite the reverse were they treated in a more liberal manner. Wherever it is adopted, it is utterly destructive of connubial confidence, and often compels women to shelter themselves under mean contrivances and low arts."-"You complain that your wife uses manœuvres and efforts to get money from you: be generous to her, treat her as a wife ought to be treated, and I venture to affirm you shall have no further cause of complaint."-" A man who supplies unavoidable and necessary expenses with a parsimonious hand, will rarely be attentive to the

extra calls of sickness, or endeavour to alleviate by his kindness the sufferings of a constitution perhaps wearing out in his service.—It was observed, upon the subject of cruelty to animals, that many, because they would not drown, burn, or scourge a poor animal to death, think themselves sufficiently humane, though they suffer them to famish with hunger and does not the conduct of many husbands suggest a similar idea? They imagine, that if they provide carefully for the maintenance of their families; if their conduct is moral; if they neither beat, starve, nor imprison their families, they are all that is requisite to constitute good husbands; and they pass for such among the crowd: but as their domestic virtues are chiefly of the negative kind, the happiness of her whose lot it is to be united to such an one for life, must be of the same description. Even the large allowance,

Have what you like,' is insufficient to satisfy the feelings of many a woman, who would be more gratified by the presentation of a flower, accompanied with expressions of tenderness, than by the most costly indulgence they could procure for themselves."

CHAPTER VIII.

ON INCREASE OF FAMILY.

Is there a prospect of your wife becoming a mother? Then, indeed, has Providence placed her in the most interesting of all female situations; and strong is her claim on your tenderness. The circumstance is a silent, though powerful, appeal to your feelings; and he must truly have an unfeeling disposition who does not find himself irresistibly drawn by the new and tender tie which now exists. She has many drawbacks on her pleasures in the contemplated increase: fear and pain must be her portion. Then is the time for a husband to show all the devoted watchful tenderness of a noble nature, and thus bind his wife to him by bonds strong as death, and lasting as eternity.

It may, however, be the will of the Almighty to withhold offspring from you; and any thing said either by husband or wife that could give the other pain on this sub

ject, is more than reprehensible; it is odious and contemptible. A woman is scarcely ever so unamiable and indelicate as to do it: and should her husband be unfeeling enough to betray even a word which could hurt the feelings of his wife on the occasion, he may talk and sophisticate the matter as he pleases, but in truth he can have but little pretension to religion, to sentiment, or to feeling. How unlike the noble-minded Elkanah, when, with sentiments at once manly and tender, he thus addresses his weeping wife— Hannah, why weepest thou? and why eatest thou not? and why is thy heart grieved? am not I better to thee than ten sons?"-1 Sam. i. 8.

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