"Not unlike this might be the feeling of many an elegant and accomplished woman, whose education has taught and practised her in everything that woman ought to know, except those identical ones which fit her for the care of a home, for the comfort of a sick-room; and so I say again, that, whatever a woman may be in the way of beauty and elegance, she must have the strength and skill of a _practical worker_, or she is nothing. She is not simply to _be_ the beautiful,--she is to _make_ the beautiful, and preserve it; and she who makes and she who keeps the beautiful must be able _to work_, and know how to work. Whatever offices of life are performed by women of culture and refinement are thenceforth elevated; they cease to be mere servile toils, and become expressions of the ideas of superior beings. If a true lady makes even a plate of toast, in arranging a _petit souper_ for her invalid friend, she does it as a lady should. She does not cut blundering and uneven slices; she does not burn the edges; she does not deluge it with bad butter, and serve it cold; but she arranges and serves all with an artistic care, with a nicety and delicacy, which make it worth one's while to have a lady friend in sickness. "And I am glad to hear that Monsieur Blot is teaching classes of New York ladies that cooking is not a vulgar kitchen toil, to be left to blundering servants, but an elegant feminine accomplishment, better worth a woman's learning than crochet or embroidery; and that a well-kept culinary apartment may be so inviting and orderly that no lady need feel her ladyhood compromised by participating in its pleasant toils. I am glad to know that his cooking academy is thronged with more scholars than he can accommodate, and from ladies in the best classes of society. "Moreover, I am glad to see that in New Bedford, recently, a public course of instruction in the art of bread-making has been commenced by a lady, and that classes of the most respectable young and married ladies in the place are attending them. "These are steps in the right direction, and show that our fair countrywomen, with the grand good-sense which is their leading characteristic, are resolved to supply whatever in our national life is wanting.