evous mistake. My dear Lady, you are too modest. If I
may say so without making you unduly conceited, even at the dinner-table
itself, you are of much more importance than the mutton. Courage, Madam,
be not afraid to tilt a lance even with your own cook. You can be more
piquant than the sauce a la Tartare, more soothing surely than the
melted butter. There was a time when he would not have known whether
he was eating beef or pork with you the other side of the table. Whose
fault is it? Don't think so poorly of us. We are not ascetics, neither
are we all gourmets: most of us plain men, fond of our dinner, as a
healthy man should be, but fonder still of our sweethearts and wives,
let us hope. Try us. A moderately-cooked dinner--let us even say a
not-too-well-cooked dinner, with you looking your best, laughing and
talking gaily and cleverly--as you can, you know--makes a pleasanter
meal for us, after the day's work is done, than that same dinner, cooked
to perfection, with you silent, jaded, and anxious, your pretty hair
untidy, your pretty face wrinkled with care concerning the sole, with
anxiety regarding the omelette.

My poor Martha, be not troubled about so many things. YOU are the one
thing needful--if the bricks and mortar are to be a home. See to it that
YOU are well served up, that YOU are done to perfection, that YOU are
tender and satisfying, that YOU are worth sitting down to. We wanted a
wife, a comrade, a friend; not a cook and a nurse on the cheap.

But of what use is it to talk? the world will ever follow its own folly.
When I think of all the good advice that I have given it, and of the
small result achieved, I confess I grow discouraged. I was giving good
advice to a lady only the other day. I was instructing her as to the
proper treatment of aunts. She was sucking a lead-pencil, a thing I am
always telling her not to do. She took it out of her mouth to speak.

"I suppose you know how everybody ought to do everything," she said.

There are times when it is necessary to sacrifice one's modesty to one's
duty.

"Of course I do," I replied.

"And does Mama know how everybody ought to do everything?" was the
second question.

My conviction on this point was by no means so strong, but for domestic
reasons I again sacrificed myself to expediency.

"Certainly," I answered; "and take that pencil out of your mouth. I've
told you of that before. You'll swallow it one day, and then you'll get
perichondritis