When they came home, however, he had the mortification to find, that though he had two smart showy ladies to visit him, he had neither dutiful daughters to nurse him, nor faithful stewards to keep his books, nor prudent children to manage his house. They neither soothed him by their kindness when he was sick, nor helped him by their industry when he was busy. They thought the maid might take care of him in the gout as she did before; for they fancied that nursing was a coarse and servile employment; and as to their skill in ciphering he soon found, to his cost, that though they knew how to _spend_ both pounds, shillings, and pence, yet they did not know how so well to cast them up. Indeed it is to be regretted that women in general, especially in the middle class, are so little grounded in so indispensable, solid, and valuable an acquirement as arithmetic. Mrs. Bragwell being one day very busy in preparing a great dinner for the neighbors, ventured to request her daughters to assist in making the pastry. They asked her with a scornful smile, whether she had sent them to a boarding school to learn to cook; and added, that they supposed she would expect them next to make hasty-puddings for the hay-makers. So saying, they coolly marched off to their music. When the mother found her girls too polite to be of any use, she would take comfort in observing how her parlor was set out with their filagree and flowers, their embroidery and cut paper. They spent the morning in bed, the noon in dressing, the evening at the harpsichord, and the night in reading novels. With all these fine qualifications it is easy to suppose, that as they despised their sober duties, they no less despised their plain neighbors. When they could not get to a horse-race, a petty-ball, or a strolling play, with some company as idle and as smart as themselves, they were driven for amusement to the circulating library. Jack, the plow-boy, on whom they had now put a livery jacket, was employed half his time in trotting backward and forward with the most wretched trash the little neighboring bookshop could furnish. The choice was often left to Jack, who could not read, but who had general orders to bring all the new things, and a great many of them.