Thus does he conclude his first discourse with his wife on the subject of her duties, and she is diligent to learn and to practise what has been taught her. When, a little later, he asks her to find him a parcel which he had brought home, and she, with flushed cheeks and troubled look, has to confess that she is unable to find it, he takes this occasion to talk to her on order and harmony in all things. He tells her not to be grieved over her failure to find the parcel, as it is his fault for not having assigned a definite place for each thing. He shows her how everything is perfectly arranged in a chorus, in a large army, and in the crew of a vessel, that all may be done harmoniously and in order. "Let us therefore fix upon a proper place where our stores may be laid up, not only in security, but where they may be so disposed that we may know where to look for every particular thing. By this means, we shall know what we gain and what we lose; and in surveying our storehouses, we shall be able to judge what is necessary to be brought in or what may want repairing and what will be impaired by keeping." With the simplicity natural to men of high intelligence, he does not hesitate to confess that he finds beauty even in kitchen utensils orderly arranged. The young wife is enchanted at his idea, and they go through the house assigning a place for each thing; they distribute duties to the slaves, and give them other instructions, with the endeavor to win their affections and elevate their characters. Ischomachus then tells her that all care will be useless if the mistress of the house do not watch to see that the established order is not disturbed. Comparing her to magistrates who make the laws of a city respected, he adds: "This, dear wife, I chiefly commend to you, that you may look upon yourself as chief overseer of the laws within our house." He tells her that it is within her jurisdiction to oversee everything in the house, as a garrison commander inspects his soldiers; that she has as great power in her own home as a queen, to distribute rewards to the virtuous and diligent and to punish those who deserve it. He desires her not to be displeased that he has intrusted more to her than to any of the servants, for they have not the same incentive to preserve those things which are not their own but hers. Up to this time, it is the loving and inexperienced child who has been conversing with her husband. Now, it is the woman, the mistress of the house, who says: "It would have been a great grief to me if, instead of those good rules you instruct me in for the welfare of our house, you had directed me to have no regard to the possessions I am endowed with; for as it is natural for a good woman to be careful and diligent about her own children rather than to have a disregard for them, so it is no less agreeable and pleasant to a woman, who has any share of sense, to look after the affairs of her family rather than to neglect them."