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labor, she so understands how to do that she can direct the service of others. Her pleasures are only secondary to her duties; and while she is refined, educated, and virtuous, she is a good manager, and a pleasant companion."
O mothers! let this be so, and hundreds of bachelors who rove through the miseries of "single blessedness," deterred from marriage by the fear that they cannot support a wife, will take to themselves one of these lovely and industrious women, and regret that they did not find her before.
Whose fault is it that the young men of our days are so afraid of marriage? Whose fault is it if married men cannot encourage bachelors to change their condition? Even from the pulpit we have heard denounced this disinclination of men to marry. We know that this abnormal state of things is prolific of moral vices and social degradation, yet we cannot encourage good men to marry women who are totally ignorant of the duties of a wife: we cannot blame them if they do not want to marry women who drag them from step to step down from the ladder of success.
No woman, were she a queen, should feel above a certain amount of daily work.
It is for the parents to educate their daughters for the profession of housewives. To become an efficient housewife, it needs the early training that a man has to undergo to become a mechanic, a professional man, or a trader. The habit of methodical work is acquired only through early perseverance, never after. Men will more respect a girl who can use a little French on her pastry than one who can only utter French bons-mots in the parlor. Her white and flexible hands will lose none of their charms if they are pricked by the industrious needle. A well-fitting dress will
