lives. It is beautiful to see them, their countenances so expressive of contentment with their condition, uniting in the morning and evening devotions of the household, with whom their sympathies have been long amalgamated. The mistress of a family, thus sustained, has opportunity for the better points of her nature to expand, and leisure to study the characters of her children, as well as to enjoy the friends who partake her hospitality.
When I see the quiet dignity of the housekeepers of the Mother-Land, their calm, unruffled reliance, that what ought to be done will be done at the right time, and well done, and the perfection they are thus enabled to give to their hospitality, it is difficult not to contrast it with our own hurried reception of unexpected guests, and the rapid inquiry of anxious thought, whether their comfort can be compassed without our hastening abruptly from their presence, to superintend the culinary department. One remembers too, the defection which may suddenly take place of all in the shape of assistants, and the disorder thus introduced into the domestic sphere, to the inconvenience of the best loved, and cannot but fervently wish for such a correct balance of interests, that those who are nominally our helpers, may no longer be actual annoyances, transient allies, or partial belligerents, but Christian friends.
We may not, indeed, expect under our form of government that precise definement of rank, or degree
