In regard to minor matters of domestic comfort, lucifer matches were not in general use until 1834, though the fact that they were anticipated by some genius in advance of his time is evidenced by this advertisement in the _Morning Post_ of 1788— “For Travellers, Mariners, etc., Promethean Fire and Phosphorus. “G. Watts respectfully acquaints the public that he has prepared a large variety of machines of a portable and durable kind, with Promethean fire, paper and match enclosed, most admirably calculated to prevent those disagreeable sensations which most frequently arise in the dreary hour of midnight, from sudden alarm, thieves, fire, or sickness.” Considering this, it is probable that some sort of sulphur match was in use before 1834, though the general method would be the tedious flint and steel. For firing, wood was, of course, largely used, the cottagers depended totally on “pilfering, breaking hedges, and cutting trees.” Coal was very expensive, being of course mined with difficulty in the pre-machinery days; here is a contemporary account of a visit to a coal-mine in Yorkshire. “We had the curiosity to walk and take a near outside view of one seventy yards deep. The manner they work them is strange and not a little dangerous, as they are obliged to have candles, and sometimes with a roof so low that men dig on their knees.... They have two boxes which are alternately pulled up and down by pullies worked by a horse, which goes round and round in a sort of well.” Added to the expense of mining was the expense of carriage, which, in the days before railways, had to be done by canal or sea, and the term sea-coal so frequently used in the literature of the day refers to this sea-borne coal. Sometimes after a storm the vessels were delayed, so that the scarcity of coal ran up the price enormously. This is a brief sketch of the details at the rectory. In such a home there was plenty of occupation for a bright spirit like Jane’s, and we can hardly imagine her ever to have been idle. When her sister was away, she undertook the housekeeping, and writes playfully— “My mother desires me to tell you that I am a good housekeeper, which I have no reluctance in doing, because I really think it my peculiar excellence, and for this reason—I always take care to provide such things as please my own appetite, which I consider as the chief merit in housekeeping. I have had some ragout veal, and I mean to have some haricot mutton to-morrow. We are to kill a pig soon.” “I am very fond of experimental housekeeping, such as having an ox-cheek now and then; I shall have one next week, and I mean to have some little dumplings put into it.” At another time, speaking of the family doctor, she says— “I was not ashamed of asking him to sit down to table, for we had some pease-soup, a sparerib, and a pudding.”