I should choose to modify this old lady's remark, and say that, people ought to do all they can _without straining_ their _muscles_ or _nerves_; not to get property, but because it is at once, their duty and their happiness. The great object of life is to do good. The great object of society is to increase the power to good. Both sexes should aim, in matrimony, at a more extended sphere of usefulness. To increase an estate, merely, is a low and unworthy aim, from which may God preserve the rising generation. Still I must say, that I greatly prefer the avaricious being--a monster though she might be--to the stupid soul who would not lift a finger if she could help it, and who determines to fold her arms whenever she has a convenient opportunity. If a female be lazy, there will be lazy domestics, and, what is a great deal worse, children will acquire this habit. Every thing, however necessary to be done, will be put off to the last moment, and then it will be done badly, and, in many cases, not at all. The dinner will be too late; the journey or the visit will be tardy; inconveniences of all sorts will be continually arising. There will always be a heavy arrear of things unperformed; and this, even among the most wealthy, is a great evil; for if they have no business imposed upon them by necessity, they _make_ business for themselves. Life would be intolerable without it; and therefore an indolent woman must always be an evil, be her rank or station what it may. But, _who is to tell_ whether a girl will make an industrious woman? How is the pur-blind lover especially, to be able to ascertain whether she, whose smiles and dimples and bewitching lips have half bereft him of his senses; how is he to be able to judge, from any thing that he can see, whether the beloved object will be industrious or lazy? Why, it is very difficult; it is a matter that reason has very little to do with. Still there are indications which enable a man, not wholly deprived of the use of his reason, to form a pretty accurate judgment in this matter. It was a famous story some years ago, that a young man, who was courting one of three sisters, happened to be on a visit to her, when all the three were present, and when one said to the others, 'I _wonder_ where _our_ needle is.' Upon which he withdrew, as soon as was consistent with the rules of politeness, resolving to think no more of a girl who possessed a needle only in partnership, and who, it appeared, was not too well informed as to the place where even that share was deposited.