Of course, this is not such an amusing life as the one lived by a mistress who is always enjoying herself, and thinking of little save her own garments, and the arrangement of the _menu_ and that of the dinner-table, but it is a far more satisfactory one. We all have duties; it rests with ourselves whether or not we shall neglect them or do them. Still, if they are not done, if our servants turn out ‘thieves, liars, and wretches,’ as they were characterised by one female writer the other day, it were well to pause, and ask who should be blamed for such a dreadful state of things. Surely not those who come to us for training and care, but rather those who do nothing to earn the right to live, and who, taking but a low view of life, look upon it as a playground instead of regarding it as a field for work--a place where we can do as much good as in us lies. Sympathy is the bond that binds men together--sympathy is the bond that should unite mistress and maid; on the lowest ground it is politic, on the highest it is ordained in a code of life given to all; and we shall none of us regret treating our servants well, for, speaking from experience, I can boldly state that, in trouble, sickness, and sorrow, one can rely implicitly for help on the maids whom we have trained ourselves, and whom we have treated exactly as we should wish them to treat us, and that I have found in a time when Fortune appeared to have turned her back on us, owing to matters on which we need not touch, that the servants stuck manfully to the ship, and did their best to help us weather a storm that, though sharp, was short, yet that might have stranded us hopelessly on a lee shore. The only fault I cannot overcome at present is this bedroom question, and the breaking of the china &c. provided for their use, hence my advice about the simple furniture given to them; but I find daily improvement here, and I hope that the next generation will be able to give their servants pretty rooms as safely as they can at present give them healthy ones.