he music of the tall old kitchen clock, we
slowly, laboriously and yet triumphantly, "bound off" our first heel, or
"narrowed off" our first toe.

But weaving machines can do this work now with far greater precision;
and while stockings are so good and so cheap, is it worth while for our
girls to spend long hours in the slow process of looping stitches into
each other? Would not the same time be better spent in the open air and
the sunshine, than in-doors, with cramped fingers and bent back over the
knitting-needles?

Of Sewing, nearly the same might be said, since the invention of
machines for the purpose. Sewing is a fine art, and those of us who can
boast of being neat seamstresses do confess to a certain degree of pride
in the boast. But the satisfaction arises from the well-doing, and not
from the fact that it is Sewing well done; for anything well and
thoroughly done, even if it be only boot-blacking on a street corner, or
throwing paper torpedoes in a theatre orchestra to imitate the crack of
a whip in the "Postilion Galop," gives to its doer the same sense of
self-satisfaction. It would be folly now, as it may have been in old
times, for our girls to spend their hours and try their eyes over
back-stitching for collars, etc., when any one out of a hundred cheap
machines can do it not only in less time but far better, and the money
which could be saved in many ways, by wisdom in housekeeping and caring
for the health of children, would buy a machine for every family. This
matter of stitching being done for us, then, we may say that the other
varieties of sewing required are very few: "sewing over-and-over," or
"top-stitching" as the Irish call it, hemming, button sewing,
button-hole making, and gathering. Indeed, hemming, including felling,
might be also omitted, as, with a very few exceptions, hems and fells
are also handed over to the rapid machine; and "over-casting" is but a
variety of "top-stitching." There are then only four things which a
girl really needs to be taught to do, so far as the mere manual facility
goes--"to sew over-and-over;" to put on a button; to gather, including
"stroking" or "laying," and to make a button-hole. Does it not seem as
if an intelligent girl of fourteen or fifteen could be taught these in
twelve lessons of one hour each? Only practice can give rapidity and
perfection; but at the age mentioned, the girl's hand has been pretty
thoroughly educated to obey her will, and but very