ry teasing,
and demonstrate a disposition too full of anxiousness; but, from a girl
who always receives you with the same civil smile, lets you, at your
own good pleasure, depart with the same; and who, when you take her by
the hand, holds her cold fingers as straight as sticks, I should say,
in mercy, preserve _me_!

_Pertinacity_ is a very bad thing in anybody, and especially in a young
woman; and it is sure to increase in force with the age of the party.
To have the last word, is a poor triumph; but with some people it is a
species of disease of the mind. In a wife it must be extremely
troublesome; and, if you find an ounce of it in the maid, it will
become a pound in the wife. A fierce _disputer_ is a most disagreeable
companion; and where young women thrust their _say_ into conversations
carried on by older persons, give their opinions in a positive manner,
and court a contest of the tongue, those must be very bold men who will
encounter them as wives.

Still, of all the faults as to _temper_, your melancholy ladies have
the worst, unless you have the same mental disease yourself. Many wives
are, at times, _misery-makers_; but these carry it on as a regular
trade. They are always unhappy about something, either past, present,
or to come. Both arms full of children is a pretty efficient remedy in
most cases; but, if these ingredients be wanting, a little want, a
little _real_ trouble, a little _genuine affliction_, often will effect
a cure.

12. ACCOMPLISHMENTS.

By accomplishments, I mean those things, which are usually comprehended
in what is termed a useful and polite education. Now it is not unlikely
that the fact of my adverting to this subject so late, may lead to the
opinion that I do not set a proper estimate on this female
qualification.

But it is not so. Probably few set too high an estimate upon it. Its
_absolute_ importance has, I am confident, been seldom overrated. It is
true I do not like a _bookish_ woman better than a bookish man;
especially a great devourer of that most contemptible species of books
with whose burden the press daily groans: I mean _novels_. But mental
cultivation, and even what is called _polite_ learning, along with the
foregoing qualifications, are a most valuable acquisition, and make
every female, as well as all her associates, doubly happy. It is only
when books, and music, and a taste for the fine arts are substituted
for other and more important things, that they sho