people--the real poor, I mean--are often wasteful and idle because they
do not just know how to be any thing else. They buy cheap garments in
stores, and they soon come apart. I had a sewing-school last summer, and
I found some mothers didn't seem to care whether their children learned
or not,--since there was so much sewing done by machines. But if the
mothers could be taught a little"--

"That's about the upshot of what I said. You see, Miss Barry, people
have been earning so much money of late years, that sewing has gone out
of fashion. It didn't pay to do this or that, so they earned and spent.
Now they sit listless in their dirt and rags, bemoaning hard times. It
is good to know how to do more than one thing," and Miss Morgan nodded
her head confidently, her strong face full of earnestness.

"Why can't you and Sylvie start a school--what shall we call it?--of
useful and homely arts? You see, the girls do work in the mills and
shops until they get married, and then they do not know how to make the
best of their husbands' money. But don't crowd out all the beauty and
the pleasure; there must be something to enlist the heart. Give a man an
interest in a thing, and you awake a new feeling, an enthusiasm that
makes every thing go as smoothly as oiling up machinery."

"I have often thought," said Mrs. Darcy in her soft, gentle voice,
"that the poor did not get as much good of their money as the better
classes, because they never have enough to buy advantageously, and
store-keepers so often take the advantage of them. Now, yesterday I was
over to Mrs. Hall's, and the poor thing was trying to make some bread,
and she was not fit to stand up and knead it; so I thought I'd try. The
flour was heavy and sticky and lumpy, and what I should call very
unprofitable. No one could make good bread out of it. She said they
traded at Kilburn's, because he would wait if they did not have the
money. The flour was seven and a half a barrel; the eighth, ninety-five
cents; and I do not believe the bread was fit to eat. So you must
remember, when you blame people for poor cooking, that they may not
always have decent materials to work with."

"Maverick was growling about Kilburn the other evening. It is a shame
that he should sell such poor goods, when prices have come down a good
deal."

"Can you not reform him a little?" and Mrs. Darcy smiled.

"Cousin Jane and Sylvie might go into business, as did the poor weavers
of Toad Lane, wi