that must modify everything in
American life; it is, and will long continue to be, a leading feature
in the life of a country so rich in openings for man and woman that
domestic service can be only the stepping-stone to something higher.
Nevertheless we Americans are great travelers; we are sensitive,
appreciative, fond of novelty, apt to receive and incorporate into our
own life what seems fair and graceful in that of other people. Our
women's wardrobes are made elaborate with the thousand elegancies of
French toilet,--our houses filled with a thousand knick-knacks of
which our plain ancestors never dreamed. Cleopatra did not set sail on
the Nile in more state and beauty than that in which our young
American bride is often ushered into her new home,--her wardrobe all
gossamer lace and quaint frill and crimp and embroidery, her house a
museum of elegant and costly gewgaws, and, amid the whole collection
of elegancies and fragilities, she, perhaps, the frailest.

Then comes the tug of war. The young wife becomes a mother, and while
she is retired to her chamber, blundering Biddy rusts the elegant
knives, or takes off the ivory handles by soaking in hot water; the
silver is washed in greasy soapsuds, and refreshed now and then with a
thump, which cocks the nose of the teapot awry, or makes the handle
assume an air of drunken defiance. The fragile china is chipped here
and there around its edges with those minute gaps so vexatious to a
woman's soul; the handles fly hither and thither in the wild confusion
of Biddy's washing-day hurry, when cook wants her to help hang out the
clothes. Meanwhile Bridget sweeps the parlor with a hard broom, and
shakes out showers of ashes from the grate, forgetting to cover the
damask lounges, and they directly look as rusty and time-worn as if
they had come from an auction-store; and all together unite in making
such havoc of the delicate ruffles and laces of the bridal outfit and
baby _layette_ that, when the poor young wife comes out of her
chamber after her nurse has left her, and, weakened and embarrassed
with the demands of the newcomer, begins to look once more into the
affairs of her little world, she is ready to sink with vexation and
discouragement. Poor little princess! Her clothes are made as
princesses wear them, her baby's clothes like a young duke's, her
house furnished like a lord's, and only Bridget and Biddy and Polly to
do the work of cook, scullery-maid, butler, footman,