employing those who have been brought up to do their own work. That tall, fine-looking girl, for aught we know, may yet be mistress of a fine house on Fifth Avenue; and if she is, she will, we fear, prove rather an exacting mistress to Irish Biddy and Bridget; but _she_ will never be threatened by her cook and chambermaid, after the first one or two have tried the experiment. * * * * * Having written thus far on my article, I laid it aside till evening, when, as usual, I was saluted by the inquiry, “Has papa been writing anything to-day?” and then followed loud petitions to hear it; and so I read as far, reader, as you have. “Well, papa,” said Jenny, “what are you meaning to make out there? Do you really think it would be best for us all to try to go back to that old style of living you describe? After all, you have shown only the dark side of an establishment with servants, and the bright side of the other way of living. Mamma does not have such trouble with her servants; matters have always gone smoothly in our family; and if we are not such wonderful girls as those you describe, yet we may make pretty good housekeepers on the modern system, after all.” “You don’t know all the troubles your mamma has had in your day,” said my wife. “I have often, in the course of my family-history, seen the day when I have heartily wished for the strength and ability to manage my household matters as my grandmother of notable memory managed hers. But I fear that those remarkable women of the olden times are like the ancient painted glass,—the art of making them is lost; my mother was less than her mother, and I am less than my mother.” “And Marianne and I come out entirely at the little end of the horn,” said Jenny, laughing; “yet I wash the breakfast-cups and dust the parlors, and have always fancied myself a notable housekeeper.”