amiability, for want of a handful of
kindly words, a touch of caress, a pinch of courtesy.

Who does not know that estimable housewife, working from eight till
twelve to keep the house in what she calls order? She is so good a
woman, so untiring, so unselfish, so conscientious, so irritating. Her
rooms are so clean, her servants so well managed, her children so well
dressed, her dinners so well cooked; the whole house so uninviting.
Everything about her is in apple-pie order, and everybody wretched.

My good Madam, you polish your tables, you scour your kettles, but the
most valuable piece of furniture in the whole house you are letting to
rack and ruin for want of a little pains. You will find it in your own
room, my dear Lady, in front of your own mirror. It is getting shabby
and dingy, old-looking before its time; the polish is rubbed off it,
Madam, it is losing its brightness and charm. Do you remember when he
first brought it home, how proud he was of it? Do you think you have
used it well, knowing how he valued it? A little less care of your
pots and your pans, Madam, a little more of yourself were wiser. Polish
yourself up, Madam; you had a pretty wit once, a pleasant laugh, a
conversation that was not confined exclusively to the short-comings of
servants, the wrong-doings of tradesmen. My dear Madam, we do not live
on spotless linen, and crumbless carpets. Hunt out that bundle of old
letters you keep tied up in faded ribbon at the back of your bureau
drawer--a pity you don't read them oftener. He did not enthuse about
your cuffs and collars, gush over the neatness of your darning. It was
your tangled hair he raved about, your sunny smile (we have not seen
it for some years, Madam--the fault of the Cook and the Butcher, I
presume), your little hands, your rosebud mouth--it has lost its shape,
Madam, of late. Try a little less scolding of Mary Ann, and practise
a laugh once a day: you might get back the dainty curves. It would be
worth trying. It was a pretty mouth once.

Who invented that mischievous falsehood that the way to a man's heart
was through his stomach? How many a silly woman, taking it for truth,
has let love slip out of the parlour, while she was busy in the kitchen.
Of course, if you were foolish enough to marry a pig, I suppose you must
be content to devote your life to the preparation of hog's-wash. But are
you sure that he IS a pig? If by any chance he be not?--then, Madam, you
are making a gri