nd it better than gentlemen understand
about sewing.

L. My dear, I hope I always speak modestly, and under correction, when I
touch upon matters of the kind too high for me; and besides, I never
intend to speak otherwise than respectfully of sewing;--though you
always seem to think I am laughing at you. In all seriousness,
illustrations from sewing are those which Neith likes me best to use;
and which young ladies ought to like everybody to use. What do you think
the beautiful word 'wife' comes from?

DORA (_tossing her head_). I don't think it is a particularly beautiful
word.

L. Perhaps not. At your ages you may think 'bride' sounds better; but
wife's the word for wear, depend upon it. It is the great word in which
the English and Latin languages conquer the French and the Greek. I hope
the French will some day get a word for it, yet, instead of their
dreadful 'femme.' But what do you think it comes from?

DORA. I never _did_ think about it.

L. Nor you, Sibyl?

SIBYL. No; I thought it was Saxon, and stopped there.

L. Yes; but the great good of Saxon words is, that they usually do mean
something. Wife means 'weaver.' You have all the right to call
yourselves little 'housewives,' when you sew neatly.

DORA. But I don't think we want to call ourselves 'little housewives.'

L. You must either be house-Wives, or house-Moths; remember that. In the
deep sense, you must either weave men's fortunes, and embroider them; or
feed upon, and bring them to decay. You had better let me keep my sewing
illustration, and help me out with it.

DORA. Well we'll hear it, under protest.

L. You have heard it before; but with reference to other matters. When
it is said, 'no man putteth a piece of new cloth on an old garment, else
it taketh from the old,' does it not mean that the new piece tears the
old one away at the sewn edge?

DORA. Yes; certainly.

L. And when you mend a decayed stuff with strong thread, does not the
whole edge come away sometimes, when it tears again?

DORA. Yes; and then it is of no use to mend it any more.

L. Well, the rocks don't seem to think that: but the same thing happens
to them continually. I told you they were full of rents, or veins. Large
masses of mountain are sometimes as full of veins as your hand is; and
of veins nearly as fine (only you know a rock vein does not mean a tube,
but a crack or cleft). Now these clefts are mended, usually, with the
strongest material the rock can fin