h the skillet on
the fire, to see it simmer with the due degree of heat, and to snatch
it off at the moment of projection; and the employments to which she
has bred her daughters are to turn rose leaves in the shade, to pick
out the seeds of currants with a quill, to gather fruit without
bruising it, and to extract bean flower water for the skin. Such are
the tasks with which every day, since I came hither, has begun and
ended, to which the early hours of life are sacrificed, and in which
that time is passing away which never shall return.

But to reason or expostulate are hopeless attempts. The lady has
settled her opinions, and maintains the dignity of her own
performances with all the firmness of stupidity accustomed to be
flattered. Her daughters, having never seen any house but their own,
believe their mother's excellence on her own word. Her husband is a
mere sportsman, who is pleased to see his table well furnished, and
thinks the day sufficiently successful in which he brings home a leash
of hares to be potted by his wife.

After a few days I pretended to want books, but my lady soon told me
that none of her books would suit my taste; for her part she never
loved to see young women give their minds to such follies, by which
they would only learn to use hard words; she bred up her daughters to
understand a house, and who ever should marry them, if they knew
anything of good cookery, would never repent it.

There are, however, some things in the culinary science too sublime
for youthful intellects, mysteries into which they must not be
initiated till the years of serious maturity, and which are referred
to the day of marriage as the supreme qualification for connubial
life. She makes an orange pudding, which is the envy of all the
neighbourhood, and which she has hitherto found means of mixing and
baking with such secrecy, that the ingredient to which it owes its
flavour has never been discovered. She, indeed, conducts this great
affair with all the caution that human policy can suggest. It is never
known beforehand when this pudding will be produced; she takes the
ingredients privately into her own closet, employs her maids and
daughters in different parts of the house, orders the oven to be
heated for a pie, and places the pudding in it with her own hands: the
mouth of the oven is then stopped, and all inquiries are vain.

The composition of the pudding she has, however, promised Clarinda,
that if she pleas