Are there still any circles of society in which, if a lady with her daughters calls upon another lady with her daughters, the decanters, biscuits, and glasses are placed upon the table, and the visitors are asked whether they will take port or sherry? This, fifty years ago, was always done in country towns, and the visitors always took a glass of port or sherry. In some houses it was not port and sherry that were placed upon the table, but ‘red’ and ‘white.’ I do not know whether the red was currant or raspberry, but I think that the white was generally cowslip. When the visitors were gone, the ladies got out their work again, threaded their needles, and spent an enjoyable hour or two in discussing the appearance, the dress, the manners, and the resources of their visitors. But the visit did them good, because it compelled company manners, which are always good for girls, and it dragged them a little out of themselves. They were too much _en famille_, these girls; they were never separated from each other. The boys got out to school or to business all day; but the poor girls were always together. Side by side they did their household duties, side by side they sewed and dressmaked, side by side they walked, side by side they prayed in the church, side by side they slept. Small chance of happiness was theirs--happiness is a separate, distinct, individual kind of thing, in which one _can_ consult one’s own likes--until, in the fulness of time, there came along the lover--a humdrum, commonplace kind of lover, I dare say, but his sweetheart was as commonplace as himself--and she exchanged a house, where she was a better kind of servant, for one of exactly the same sort, in which she was the mistress. And when one says mistress, it must be remembered that man was, in those days, much more of a master in the house than he is now allowed to be. I speak not at random, but from the evidence of those who remember and from study of the literature, both that written by the men and that by the women. I am certain that the husband, unless he was hen-pecked--a pleasing word, now seldom used--was always the Master and generally the Tyrant in the house.