Buckmaster's cookery

and bestow on the sick and the suffering a little of that love which, from the want of some higher motive, is often bestowed on cats and dogs. Young ladies are often taken from homes where they have enjoyed every luxury and have had servants to wait on them. They marry and go perhaps to distant settlements where no amount of money can secure a female servant. A lady who had been stationed for some years in one of our colonies was obliged to do all the work of the house herself. With her baby tied on her back, she used to make the beds, cook the dinner, and for live years lived without a servant : and her husband said it was the happiest period of his life. “ My mother ” (said the lady) “ was a sensible woman. After I left school she sent me to finish in the kitchen; and, under the direction of the cook, the meat, fish, vegetables, and poultry were brought in ; and my mother insisted that I should do everything from beginning to end ; and in a few months I was able to prepare a dinner from first to last.” On one occasion they had twelve persons in the house as visitors ; the cook met with an accident (they were some distance from any town), and this young lady undertook the preparation of the dinner. When the first bell rang she went up to dress, and in half an hour sat down to the dinner which her own head and hands had prepared. This lady belonged to one of the oldest aristocratic families in this country, and I have her permission to mention the circumstance. Now, I ask which is the greater lady, the one who easily adapts herself 'to altered circumstances and can, when necessary, in a spirit of generous independence and cheerfulness, cook her The Education of Girls. husband’s dinner, or the woman who speechifies about her rights and has never learnt to boil a potato or to dress a baby. In the arrangements of society and in the designs of Providence certain domestic duties have always been assigned to women, and these duties ought never to be forgotten or despised. But human nature is full of imperfections and weaknesses which often make a large demand on our charity and forbearance. All accomplishments are useless to a woman if she has not learnt to look well to the ways of her own household, if her servants are not under respectful authority, and if her table be badly provided and decorated, she will be wanting in all those valuable qualities which once made English women distinguished above the women of every other country ; and until they have learned and practised the duties and refinements of domestic life, have taught their young daughters howto cook economically and to dress neatly, how to be noble and happy, we have certainly not much to say to heathens and Hottentots. In this metropolis there are thousands of noble women — ladies in the highest and best sense — endeavouring to do good among the poor, some of whom have given up all worldly indulgences and hopes for the benefit of others. I have seen them, on a cold winter’s day, collecting scraps of cast-off vegetables at Covent Garden, amid the jeers and scoffs of vulgar well-dressed people. With these vegetables, and a few bones, often begged from houses, savoury and wholesome food has been prepared from materials which would otherwise have been trodden under foot. In dealing with suffering and poverty it is sometimes Buckmaster's Cookery.