But if parents, and especially mothers, could view this matter in its true light, how differently would they educate their children. They would then feel that, grateful as it is to a mother’s heart to see her daughters highly refined and elegantly accomplished, and able to “make the instrument discourse most eloquent music,” and to transfer living nature, with all its truth and beauty and sublimity, to the canvass, still the art of bread-making, when considered in all its relations and intimate connections with human health, and prosperity, and virtue, and happiness, and with reference to the natural responsibilities and duties of woman, is actually one of the highest and noblest accomplishments that can adorn the female character. And then, too, would they consider it of exceedingly great importance, that their daughters should possess this accomplishment, even though they may never be in circumstances which will require the exercise of it. Some eight or nine years since, I spent several months in the delightful village of Belvidere, on the banks of the Delaware, in Pennsylvania. While there, I enjoyed for a number of weeks the kind hospitality of S― S―, Esq., a lawyer, and a gentleman of great moral excellence. Mrs. S. was born and brought up, I believe, in Philadelphia. Her father was a man of wealth, and she was the only daughter, and—almost as a matter of course—was indulged in all that she desired. But there were so many of the elements of a good wife and mother in her natural composition, that as soon as she entered into those interesting and important relations, she began to devote herself to the duties of them with a sincerity and conscientiousness which could not fail of success. Surrounded as she was, with wealth, and every comfort and convenience of life, and all of its luxuries that she desired, still she was industrious in her habits, and vigilantly attentive to all the concerns of her household. She usually kept three female domestics, who, by her kind maternal deportment towards them, were warmly attached to her. She had no difficulty in procuring nor in keeping help, because she always treated them in such a manner that they loved to stay with her; and she took much pains to qualify them for the proper discharge of their duties. They evidently loved her, and were sincerely desirous of performing all their services in such a manner as would be pleasing to her. Yet with all these advantages to justify her leaving such a duty to her domestics, Mrs. S. invariably made the family bread with her own hands. Regularly as the baking day came, she went into her kitchen and took her stand beside the bread trough, and mixed and kneaded the dough, and put it in its proper place for rising, and, in due time, moulded it into the loaf and baked it. Do you always make your bread, madam? I inquired one day, as she returned from the performance of that task. “Invariably,” she replied: “that is a duty I trust no other person to do for me.”