I expect we shall have
jolly times, for we're going to board the schoolmaster. If he calls to
see you, as I think he will, I want you should read Jane's letter to
him. She would take my head off if she knew I mentioned it, but I
think he ought to know what's before him.

Respectfully,

MRS. JOHN.

P.S. No. 2.--Unnecessarily appended by John.

MY DEAR ARCHITECT: If we've got to go through the whole establishment
on transcendental principles, I shall send in my resignation straight.

Sister Jane's a regular trump; Penelope and queen of Sheba rolled into
one. But when the women-folks begin to preach, I always find it best
to keep still and consider my sins. I haven't had a chance to say much
lately, but I've kept up a tremendous thinking, and when I do get the
floor look out for me. How do you happen to know so much about the
millennium?

Yours patiently,

JOHN.

LETTER XXXI.

From the Architect.

DOMESTIC-SERVICE REFORM.

Dear Miss Jane: Your very kind letter was received and gratefully
appreciated. As the world grows less ignorant and wicked, we should
naturally expect missionaries and reformers to find their occupation
going, if not quite gone; that modern reforms would be mere play
compared with the stern and mighty movements that in former times have
blessed mankind and balked the Evil One. But somehow the need for
missionary work seems greater every year. We are not even permitted to
go to the heathen. They come to us without waiting for an invitation;
if not as pupils in the lessons of civilization, they come as
teachers. Sometimes they are aliens, sometimes our own kith and kin.
To keep what we have won and gain the next height requires new zeal,
and ever greater efforts,--requires the very work you are doing; for a
well-ordered home, though it consist of but two members, is a
tremendous missionary society. The light streaming from its windows is
an ever-burning beacon of safety to our most cherished social
institutions.

First and chiefly, this essential home work needs to be taken from the
hands of indifferent, careless servants and confided to those who
realize the nobleness of the responsibility, and will strive to meet
it faithfully. Ultimately, the ignorant, careless ones must be taught,
but that will never be till culture is a manifest necessity and finds
a fit reward. When a man undertakes the charge of a new business, he
learns, not only its general principles, but as far as possi