became a thriving man. Quick and clever in all things, he readily comprehended the bearing of any transaction. His mercantile speculations succeeded, and he grew to be a rich man. As a matter of course he enlarged his house and his acquaintance, and took from those enlargements and his wealth an enlarged position in society.

But his wife remained the nonentity she had ever been. "Read the papers," he said to her, "for goodness' sake do try to understand what your guests are talking about. You never say one word when political or intellectual subjects are discussed, and only become eloquent on the subjects of servants and butcher's meat." "And very good subjects too," answered the wife. "I should like to know where you would have been if I had not thought about the servants and the butcher's meat, as you call it. A nice household you would have, sir, if I spent my time like Mrs. What-d'ye-call-her, reading the debates in the morning and writing for some stupid thing or other in the afternoon! a pretty sort of a wife she is doesn't know a rump from a beefsteak, I'll be bound. She bought a piece of roast beef for her mother's dinner with a big blade-bone sticking through it-believing all the time that it was sirloin. It wasn't any more sirloin than I'm sirloin, only the butcher saw he'd a fool to deal with, and sold it for such. There, sir-there's your clever wife-who reads the debates and talks about them to her guests-and a pretty mess she makes of housekeeping. Defend me from such, say I, but she'd suit your book perhaps."

"I think she might," whispered Josiah, as he moved out of the way of the irate lady. "I think she might. A man can buy a house-keeper for twenty pounds a year, a wife costs something more than that he should have value received for his money."

it

There was immense truth in his remark. A man wants a companion-companionship is a natural requirement of human nature, and if a husband can't get at home, he will in all probability go else where to seek it, and therefore such be ing the case, it becomes the duty and wise policy of each married woman at least to squeeze out a little remnant of time, wherein she can cull some knowledge of the passing transactions of the world which will fit her for such companionship. I

What does Josiah Brown talk of to his fellow-men? He does not discuss the momentous fact of Stubbs the butcher giving better weight than his neighbor Jones, or Merkins the baker charging one penny per loaf less than the opposition bread purveyor, who has opened the new shop round the corner.

"I'd like to see you keeping house for yourself, Mr. Brown," continued the flying squadron of a wife following up the retreating party. "I'd like to see you keeping house for yourself-nicely you'd be cheated, sir-oh! yes I know the phrase-behave like a gentleman, I suppose and not lock up the tea or sugar, or count the coppers in change. I don't believe Mrs. Thing-'em-bob ever knows what her meat-bill is. Why, Betsy who came to us, lived with her as under-housemaid, you know, but you don't know," said Mrs. Brown, breaking off in her invective, to turn the artillery of her anger on her husband, "but you never know any thing or care, it seems to me; however, Betsy declared positively that she did not go into her kitchen more than once a week, and always let her maid count out the clean linen from the laundry! There's your clever wife, Mr. Brown; I'd just like you to try her, sir, for two or three days."

"Might be very agreeable, ma'am, but wouldn't be a moral arrangement," replied Josiah.

"You'd come back fast enough to me," added his wife, carried on by the volubility of her tongue and anger. "You'd come back to me quick enough."

"Don't think so," said Josiah aside.

"And," continued his excited wife, "find out the difference between a 'clever wife'-and a woman who knows how to manage, and does manage; and can put a good dinner on the table, and leave the talking part of the business to her husband, you'd find out the difference between the two, I can tell you."

"I don't doubt it," again muttered Josiah in an under-tone.

"A wife indeed!" she mumbled as she walked off, "what's a wife to do with politics and literature, as you call it, Mr. Josiah, what is she made for? Why, to mind her house, and to make the best of every thing, and what's the good of her, if she can talk to her guests, but can't buy a piece of meat to feed them?"

Mrs. Josiah had reason in her argu

ment as well as her husband -a mere clever woman, although agreeable enough as a casual companion, is not of the most valuable material for a wife. Mrs. Josiah was quite right in asking: "What's the use of a wife who can talk to her guests, and yet can't buy a piece of meet to feed them?" But Mrs. Brown forgot one thing in her essentially domestic reasoning, and that one thing is, simply that it is quite possible for a lady to do both.

Some years since there stood a female name before society as a marvel of intellectual research. Her mathematical knowledge at first attracted the attention of great men, and then when they had the privilege of admission to her presence, and an interchange of thought with her, they discovered that her knowledge on all other subjects was as complete as in the single branch of mathematics; "she can converse on any subject," said one of the leading men of the day, "on any topic I advance, I gain information from her."

Now this lady was perfectly well known in certain circles, and her intellect universally recognized both by those who had, or had not the pleasure of her acquaintance; and although she was without any doubt one of the most intellectual women who ever lived, she did not neglect the less exalting occupation of domestic utilityshe was an excellent housekeeper; she could both "talk to the guests, and buy the beef to feed them." This example, and there are many others as convincing, establishes the fact that it is quite possible for a woman to be both useful and ornamental, and while all may not attain to her excellence, all may imitate the example of Mrs. Somerville.

But "out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh," and if the fullness of the heart consists of beef and bread, and butchers and bakers, with every thing of the kind, then there is no room for any higher theme for thought; and, therefore the tongue can not give utterance to any other expression of thought than relates to the common belongings of daily life and daily cookings.

The restricted conditions of a woman's life, tend to produce a restricted scope of thought. Her mind is confined to narrow circles wandering in them round each particular of her home; each circle having a nucleus or center of its own, and each and all revolving round a common center.

To dissect the mental system of a modern housekeeper, it stands thus, one common center-the general expenditure of the household-sundry little spheres held together by, and revolving round, that one. The butcher is one of these minor spheres - the baker another and the grocer a third. Now the thorough housewife's mind, the mere housewife's, we would say, turns in and with all these. This is her planetary system, she lives in it, progresses with it each year journeying on to the coming time; when she and it, and all things connected with either, shall cease to be.

Now a woman who has her mind thus circumscribed, can not be an acceptable companion to the man, who leaving his home behind him, with its economy of butcher, baker, and grocer, goes to the world and culls from its experiences, and communion with his fellow-men fresh thoughts and enlarged notions and ideas.

Woman has not this advantage; she must stay at home and do her duty there, she can not go abroad and hear the topics of the day discussed; but although that privilege be denied her, others are within her grasp. She has the papers for her perusal, they give full information of the topics of the day, and she can partly from them and other sources gather informa tion enough to converse on the subjects which are uppermost in the minds of the gentlemen of her family, and their friends.

And woman should not despise this kind of reading, or this kind of knowledge. It tends to make home happy, by establishing an interest between those who constitute that home. If ladies took a little more trouble to inform themselves of the leading public questions of the day, husbands would not be compelled to go abroad to discuss them. And perhaps that sort of information might in the end be productive of more content than the same amount of thought expanded on the choice between two butchers, the subject of halting between the two being probably a question of one half-penny or one penny per pound, and an imperceptible difference in the quality of the meat.

The truth is, that as a rule women are often in extremes. He was wrong who made the sweeping assertion," Women are always in extremes "-that is not quite the case, but they are generally in extremes. They are either mere stocking

darners, and domestic nonenities, or they are strong-minded "rights of women folks," (a very objectionable class,) lamentably ignorant of and indifferent to the duties of their household, giving their thoughts to more interesting, but not more necessary, social questions and intellectual pursuits.

How to divide the minutes of life profitably seems the thing to be found out, and what degree of attention to bestow on one object, and what on another, the question to be decided.

"Women are all in extremes." There was more truth in the saying than at first sight appears. Extreme in goodness, woman is no one need deny that, because should he do so, he would only gain disbelief by his denial. A good woman is an extremely admirable creature, and there are many good, extremely good women, walking quietly through the length and depth of this wicked earth, scattering good-and good only about

them.

"Women are all in extremes "-unfortunately the "extreme" holds still in another manner, and the extremity be one of ill instead of good. A bad woman!an ill-conditioned and unprincipled person, will, it has been remarked, exceed man in ill. That may be true or not; probably the fact has never been tested, but whether true or not, one thing is established by experience, and that is, that when a woman casts the better feelings of her nature to the winds, those of a viler kind gain almost superhuman strength, and hurry her along in an irresistible current of sin and guilt and woe.

Society places a certain check on woman's conduct, but once let her cast aside principle and prejudice, and burst through the bonds which society places between her and an outwardly vicious course, and there will be no bounds to her open dereliction of religion, of right feeling, and right principle.

A female drunkard has been pronounced incapable of reform. Once let a wo man take to that horid vice, and she knows no medium. On she goes, madly -recklessly, until Death says, "Nomore!" then and then only is the poisonous draught relinquished and the sin forsaken-if that can be called forsaken which we no longer have the power of clinging to.

come cruel, it were a stigma on the tigress to call woman by its name. In olden times, a woman lending herself to fanaticism, under the plea of religion, sanctioned the murder of a band of unsuspecting Huguenots, with fiend-like exultation; thinking of their cries and glorying in their massacre. History records no more terrible crime perpetrated beneath woman's rule, than the massacre of Saint Bartholomew under Catherine de Medicis.

And in later days, when a pestilence raged in France, and the poor stricken victims writhed in mortal agony in the overcrowded wards of the public hospitals, a woman walked amongst them, and, under the plea of mercy, holding out the hope of alleviation, administered the potion which was eagerly sought for by the fevered lips of the sufferers. Cold, and ' calm, and impassive, stood that heartless woman beside each dying wretch; looking, with the philosophy of devils, on the working of her deadly drug-for poison, in various forms, was the cordial she gave; and the wards of those pestilencestricken houses were the fields of her diabolical experiments on human life. Never, in any times, modern or ancient, has cruelty exceeded hers, for as a monster in human mould, the memory of the Marchioness of Brinvilliers is execrated by the world.

Such women stand out like finger-posts on a sunny shore, indicating where the treacherous quicksands lie, and proving the female character to be capable of great enormities.

Few happily have the opportunity for the magnitude of crime practiced by those named here; yet, as the gushing river grows from the single drop, so do the passions and the vices which, in the end produce such crimes, spring from a fountain of unhallowed feeling as small, compared to the full crime, as the tiny drop to the wide flowing river.

And if woman's nature be capable of this enormity of ill, so is it also capable of good. Crime is the consequence of an illtrained heart and mind, and the most favored natures-those which are imbued with the strongest feelings and the strongest purposes are exactly those which, capable of the greatest good, run to the extreme of ill. It is a thought of deep reShall the talent given be so