er needed to be soothed by a calmly
spoken word; and I have seen her even-minded husband, who knew not
what it was to feel a pain, or to suffer from nervous prostration,
reprove that wife with a look that called the tears to her eyes. She
was wrong, but he was wrong in a greater degree. The over-tried wife
needed her husband's sustaining patience, and gently spoken counsel,
not his cold reproof.

Husbands, as far as my observation gives me the ability to judge,
have far less consideration for, and patience with their wives, than
they are entitled to receive. If any should know best the wife's
trials, sufferings, and incessant exhausting duties, it is the
husband, and he, of all others, should be the last to censure, if,
from very prostration of body and mind, she be sometimes betrayed
into hasty words, that generally do more harm among children and
domestics than total silence in regard to what is wrong. But this is
a digression.

One day, I called to see Mrs. Martinet, and found her in a very
disturbed state of mind.

"I am almost worried to death, Kate!" she said, soon after I came
in.

"You look unhappy," I returned. "What has happened?"

"What is always happening," she replied. "Scarcely a day passes over
my head that my patience is not tried to the utmost. I must let
every body in the house do just as he or she likes, or else there is
a disturbance. I am not allowed to speak out my own mind, without
some one's being offended."

"It is a great trial, as well as responsibility to have the charge
of a family," I remarked.

"Indeed, and you may well say that. No one knows what it is but she
who has the trial. The greatest trouble is with your domestics. As a
class, they are, with few exceptions, dirty, careless, and impudent.
I sometimes think it gives them pleasure to interfere with your
household arrangements and throw all into disorder. This seems
especially to be the spirit of my present cook. My husband is
particular about having his meals at the hour, and is never pleased
when irregularities occur, although he does not often say any thing;
this I told Hannah, when she first came, and have scolded her about
being behindhand a dozen times since; and yet we do not have a meal
at the hour oftener than two or three times a week.

"This morning, Mr. Martinet asked me if I wouldn't be particular in
seeing that dinner was on the table exactly at two o'clock. As soon
as he was gone, I went down into the kitche