I see, you still further inquire how, with so many domestic claims of my own, and not enjoying good health, I find time to attend to such a society. Now, in alluding to this, you no doubt were influenced by the recollection of Mrs Jellaby’s celebrated establishment; and have been thinking, when you pay us your long-promised visit, whether you will be able to trace a resemblance in my children to the poor little neglected ‘Peepy;’ how much semi-cooked meat you will have to eat; whether the potatoes will sometimes be lost by being placed in the coal-scuttle, and so forth. After all that has been written and said, both for and against mothers of families being allowed to do anything besides ‘minding their own business,’ it seems to me that the question resolves itself simply into this:—Is the occupation in unison with home duties, and can it chime in with them? or is it something that will divert the thoughts and actions into an entirely different channel? Now, although we may imagine it possible to work one’s own mind up into a strong interest in some ‘Borrioboolah Gha,’ it is rather too much to expect that the minds of those about us will be equally interested. But if you could see the great pleasure which my children derive from hearing about the society, and working with me, you would be the first to beg me to continue it for their sakes. On the morning succeeding a meeting, they come round me with numerous inquiries after some mother or baby, whom they have learned to know through hearing me speak of them. They have, of their own accord, set apart one day in the week for working for the little children of those mothers who are very poor; and when, the other day, they heard me speaking of a poor woman who was lamenting she could not read, they immediately offered to go two or three times a-week to teach her. It seems to me, that the few hours a-day which we set apart for teaching our children, (for ‘school,’ as we call it,) has far less to do with the formation of their character, than that which they see and hear constantly going on around them. It is the every-day incidents of life that impress children; and if it had only been for their sakes, I do not know that I could have thought of anything better fitted to prepare them for what I wish them to be,—followers of Him ‘who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister.’