d, blind Vulcan, and you the fair Cytherea, the bearers of the
magic cestus, and therefore it is to you that this head more
particularly belongs.

"Now I maintain that in family-life there should be an effort not only
to be neat and decent in the arrangement of our person, but to be also
what the French call _coquette_,--or to put it in plain English, there
should be an endeavor to make ourselves look handsome in the eyes of our
dearest friends.

"Many worthy women, who would not for the world be found wanting in the
matter of personal neatness, seem some how to have the notion that any
study of the arts of personal beauty in family-life is unmatronly; they
buy their clothes with simple reference to economy, an have them made up
without any question of becomingness; and hence marriage sometimes
transforms a charming, trim, tripping young lady into a waddling matron
whose every-day toilette suggests only the idea of a feather-bed tied
round with a string. For my part, I do not believe that the summary
banishment of the Graces from the domestic circle as soon as the first
baby makes its appearance is at all conducive to domestic affection. Nor
do I think that there is any need of so doing. These housewives are in
danger, like other saints, of falling into the error of neglecting the
body through too much thoughtfulness for others and too little
themselves. If a woman ever had any attractiveness; let her try and keep
it, setting it down as one of her domestic talents. As for my erring
brothers firm who violate the domestic sanctuary by tousled hair,
tumbled linen, and muddy shoes, I deliver them over to Miss Jennie
without benefit of clergy.

"My second head is, that there should in family-life the same delicacy
in the avoidance of disagreeable topics that characterizes the
intercourse of refined society among strangers.

"I do not think that it makes family-life more sincere, or any more
honest, to have the members of a domestic circle feel a freedom to blurt
out in each other's faces, without thought or care, all the disagreeable
things that may occur to them: as, for example, 'How horridly you look
this morning! What's the matter with you?'--'Is there a pimple coming on
your nose? or what is that spot?'--'What made you buy such a dreadfully
unbecoming dress? It sets like a witch! Who cut it?'--'What makes you
wear that pair of old shoes?'--'Holloa, Bess! is that your party-rig? I
should think you were going out for