Before commencing your visits to the poor, I would advise you to inquire in what way you can best afford them employment; for instance, in your neighbourhood, I believe, the country people employ themselves generally in making lace; knowing this, you could not do better, when calling upon some of the cottagers, than to give an order for lace, and in doing so you might enter into conversation with them about their patterns, the length of time they have been employed in the business, and a variety of other topics which will suggest themselves naturally. This will deprive your visit of the painful feeling which would have attended it if you had called without any direct object in view, and it will give you an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the different members of the family, and seeing whether there are any too young or too old to work in the same manner as the others, and for whom you may possibly be able to find fitting employment. Plaiting coarse straw or bulrushes is an employment that can be followed both by old people and young children; and you will find covers made of straw plaited into bands, and then sown together, of great service in protecting your half-hardy plants during frosty weather. Garden mats, baskets for flowers, and various other things, may be made in the same manner, and you will easily find out what will be most suitable to your _protégées_, and what they can do with least difficulty to themselves. In cases of illness, I am sure you will be happy to assist your poor neighbours in every way in your power. When poor people are ill their means of support are stopped, and they have not only to labour through the pains of illness, but they are also exposed to the greatest privations for the want of food, at the very moment when food of a more nourishing nature than usual is required for them. Then it is that the helping hand of the rich is of the greatest value to the poor, and that charity takes its most graceful form. Many ladies in the country employ a portion of their time in making clothes for the poor; but with the exception of permitting young people to make baby-linen, I question whether it is advisable that much should be done in this way. The feelings of the poor are often hurt by having it dictated to them what they are to wear, and they are apt to look upon the clothes thus given to them, and which are probably quite different from what they would have purchased for themselves, almost as a badge of slavery which they are compelled to wear to please their patrons, but of which they hate the very sight.