e satisfactory scourge and hair
shirt of rising betimes next morning, try the more commonplace penance of
going to bed in proper time the next night, without any dawdling. So many
girls do things in a dreamy, dawdling way, that must be a sore trial to
those about them: if a thing has to be done, you should do it in a quick,
purpose-like way, and not waste your own time and other people's temper. A
girl will placidly tell you, "I'm always slow, it's my way," never
realizing that "ways" may be very objectionable. We think it dishonest in
workmen that there should be a difference between a man who works by time
and one who works by the piece: you blame the workman who spends twice as
much of his master's time as he need, but, when you dawdle, you spend
_your_ Master's time: getting through with things quickly and "deedily" is
a matter of habit, and the Virtuous Woman practises it in everything she
does.

"_Her hands hold the distaff_." The Virtuous Woman will not be satisfied
until she knows how to make a dress and do plain work; not that, having
acquired the knowledge, she will necessarily use it, for a woman with
brains and education can employ her time to more purpose, and can give
employment to poorer women at her gate, by putting out her work. It is
burying her talent in the ground if she employs, in making her children's
frocks, the time which should be spent in cultivating her mind, so as to
be fit to educate them when they are older.

"_She stretcheth out her hand to the poor_." The "classes" are poor and
needy, as well as the "masses:" read Mozley's "University Sermon" on "Our
Duty to our Equals," and learn to see that they also need a stretched-out
hand. We may be very kind in our district; are we as kind to social
bores? We may be very energetic in school feasts; are we as careful to
provide amusements of other kinds for people who, in rank or brains, are
slightly our inferiors?

"_She is not afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household
are clothed with scarlet_" (marg., double garments). She looks after the
health of other people as well as her own; she does not keep her maid
sitting up night after night, or overwork her dressmaker. She is as
considerate for the flyman waiting for her on a rainy night as she would
be for her father's coachman and horses, remembering that the flyman is
quite as liable to catch cold as the coachman, and has fewer facilities
for curing himself.

"_Her clothing i