on Miss Letitia's letter.
What comes next?"

"Here is a correspondent who answers the question, 'What shall we do
with her?'--apropos of the case of the distressed young woman which we
considered in our first chapter."

"And what does he recommend?"

"He tells us that he should advise us to make our distressed
woman Marianne's housekeeper, and to send South for three or
four contrabands for her to train, and, with great apparent
complacency, seems to think that course will solve all similar
cases of difficulty."

"That's quite a man's view of the subject," said Jenny. "They think
any woman who isn't particularly fitted to do anything else can keep
house."

"As if housekeeping were not the very highest craft and mystery of
social life," said I. "I admit that our sex speak too unadvisedly on
such topics, and, being well instructed by my household priestesses,
will humbly suggest the following ideas to my correspondent.

"1st. A woman is not of course fit to be a housekeeper because she is
a woman of good education and refinement.

"2d. If she were, a family with young children in it is not the proper
place to establish a school for untaught contrabands, however
desirable their training may be.

"A woman of good education and good common sense may learn to be a
good housekeeper, as she learns any trade, by going into a good family
and practicing first one and then another branch of the business, till
finally she shall acquire the comprehensive knowledge to direct all.

"The next letter I will read:--

"DEAR MR. CROWFIELD,--Your papers relating to the domestic problem
have touched upon a difficulty which threatens to become a matter
of life and death with me.

"I am a young man, with good health, good courage, and good
prospects. I have, for a young man, a fair income, and a prospect
of its increase. But my business requires me to reside in a
country town, near a great manufacturing city. The demand for
labor there has made such a drain on the female population of the
vicinity, that it seems, for a great part of the time, impossible
to keep any servants at all; and what we can hire are of the
poorest quality, and want exorbitant wages. My wife was a
well-trained housekeeper, and knows perfectly all that pertains to
the care of a family; but she has three little children, and a
delicate babe only a few weeks old; and can any one woman do all
that is needed for such a household?