gs to look forward to;
but the conviction was formed, after mature reflection, that a
residence some miles from town was the one best suited to the writer's
family. She was compelled to acknowledge to those friends who advised
her to the contrary, her ignorance on most things appertaining to the
mode of life she proposed to commence, but trusted to that
often-talked-of commodity, common sense, to prevent her being ruined
by farming four acres of land.

She thought, if she could not herself discover how to manage, she
might acquire the requisite knowledge from some of the little books
she had purchased on subjects connected with "rural economy." They
proved, however, quite useless. They appeared to the writer to be
merely compilations from larger works; and, like the actors in the
barn, who played the tragedy of "Hamlet," and omitted the character of
the hero, so did these books leave out the very things which, from the
title-pages, the purchaser expected to find in them.

Some time after experience had shown how butter could be made
successfully, a lady, who had been for years resident in the country,
said, during a morning call, "My dairy-maid is gone away ill, and the
cook makes the butter; but it is so bad we cannot eat it: and besides
that nuisance, she has this morning given me notice to leave. She says
she did not 'engage' to 'mess' about in the dairy."

"Well," said the writer, "why not make the butter yourself, till you
can suit yourself with a new servant?"

"I have tried," said the visitor, "but cannot do it. My husband is
very particular about the butter being good, so I was determined to
see if I could not have some that he could eat; therefore I _pored_
over Mrs. Rundle, and other books, for a whole day, but could not find
how to begin. None of them told me how to _make_ the butter, though
several gave directions for potting it down when it was made. I made
the boy churn for more than three hours yesterday morning, but got no
butter after all. _It would not come!_ The weather was very cold, and
it occurred to the listener to ask the lady _where_ the boy churned,
and where the cream had been kept during the previous night.

"Why, in the dairy, to be sure," was the answer; "and my feet became
so chilled by standing there, that I can hardly put them to the ground
since. Cook could not succeed more than I did, and said, the last time
she made it, it was between four and five hours before the butter
came;