But cannot your domestics make good bread? I asked. “I have excellent domestics,” answered Mrs. S., “and they can, perhaps, make as good bread as I can; for they have been with me several years, and I have taken pains to learn them how to do my work; and they are exceedingly faithful and affectionate, and are always willing to do all they can to please me; but they cannot feel for my husband and my children as I do, and therefore they cannot feel that interest which I do, in always having such bread as my husband and my children will love and enjoy. Besides, if it were certain their care and vigilance and success in bread-making would be always equal to mine, yet it is wholly uncertain how long they will remain with me. Various circumstances may take place, which may cause them to leave me, and bring me into dependence upon those who know not how to make good bread; and therefore I choose to keep my own hand in. But, apart from all other considerations, there is a pleasure resulting from the performance of this duty, which richly rewards me for all the labor of it. When my bread is made and brought upon the table, and I see my husband and children eat it and enjoy it, and hear them speak of its excellence, it affords me much satisfaction, and I am glad to know that I have contributed so much to their health and happiness; for, while my bread is so good that they prefer it to anything else upon the table, there is little danger of their indulging, to any injurious extent, in those articles of food which are less favorable to their health.” I need not say that this lady invariably had excellent bread upon her table. But instances of this kind are, I regret to say, extremely rare, even in christian communities; and therefore when such cases are known, they ought to be held up as most noble examples of female virtue, and receive such high commendations as their intrinsic merit deserves, and such as will be calculated to beget in the minds of others an exalted sense of the dignity and importance of such duties, and prompt every wife and mother to the intelligent and affectionate performance of them. For it should ever be remembered that, though our children, while they depend on us for protection, are also properly the subjects of our government, yet as soon as they are capable of appreciating our authority and our influence, they are, like ourselves, moral agents, and ought, in all respects, to be governed and nurtured as such; and therefore it is not enough that we can give them such bread as we think best for them, and _compel_ them to eat it; but the grand point at which the mother should always aim, in this matter, is, to place before her children such bread as is the very best for them, and at the same time, to make it the most agreeable to them, and thereby make their duty and their enjoyment perfectly coincide.