"Once in a while our Italian opera-singers bring to our shores those glorious physiques which formed the inspiration of Italian painters; and then American editors make coarse jokes about Barnum's fat woman, and avalanches, and pretend to be struck with terror at such dimensions. "We should be better instructed, and consider that Italy does us a favor, in sending us specimens, not only of higher styles of musical art, but of a warmer, richer, and more abundant womanly life. The magnificent voice is only in keeping with the magnificent proportions of the singer. A voice which has no grate, no strain, which flows without effort,--which does not labor eagerly up to a high note, but alights on it like a bird from above, there carelessly warbling and trilling,--a voice which then without effort sinks into broad, rich, sombre depths of soft, heavy chest-tone,--can come only with a physical nature at once strong, wide, and fine,--from a nature such as the sun of Italy ripens, as he does her golden grapes, filling it with the new wine of song." "Well," said I, "so much for our strictures on Miss Letitia's letter. What comes next?" "Here is a correspondent who answers the question, 'What shall we do with her?'--_apropos_ to the case of the distressed young woman which we considered in our November number." "And what does he recommend?" "He tells us that _he_ should advise us to make our distressed woman Marianne's housekeeper, and to send South for three or four contrabands for her to train, and, with great apparent complacency, seems to think that course will solve all similar cases of difficulty." "That's quite a man's view of the subject," said Jennie. "They think any woman who isn't particularly fitted to do anything else can keep house." "As if housekeeping were not the very highest craft and mystery of social life," said I. "I admit that our sex speak too unadvisedly on such topics, and, being well instructed by my household priestess, will humbly suggest the following ideas to my correspondent. "1st. A woman is not of course fit to be a housekeeper because she is a woman of good education and refinement. "2d. If she were, a family with young children in it is not the proper place to establish a school for untaught contrabands, however desirable their training may be. "A woman of good education and good common-sense may _learn_ to be a good housekeeper, as she learns any trade, by going into a good family and practising first one and then another branch of the business, till finally she shall acquire the comprehensive knowledge to direct all. "The next letter I will read. "'DEAR MR. CROWFIELD,--Your papers relating to the domestic problem have touched upon a difficulty which threatens to become a matter of life and death with me.