and the love of your companions, will surely be deemed rewards sufficient to animate your most fervent endeavours; yet this is not all: the disposition of mind, which I would recommend, is its own reward, and is in itself essential to happiness. Cultivate it therefore, my dear child, with your utmost diligenceand watch the symptoms of ill-temper, as they rise, with a firm resolution to conquer them, before they are even perceived by any other person. In every such inward conflict, call upon your Maker, to assist the feeble nature he hath given you-and sacrifice to Him every feeling that would tempt you to disobedience: So will you at length attain that true Christian meekness, which is blessed in the sight of God and man; "which has the pro"mise of this life as well as of that which is to "come." Then will you pity, in others, those infirmities, which you have conquered in yourself; and will think yourself as much bound to assist, by your patience and gentleness, those who are so unhappy as to be under the dominion of evil passions, as you are to impart a share of your riches to the poor and miserable.

Adieu, my dearest

LETTER VII.

ON ECONOMY.

MY DEAR NIECE,

ECONOMY is so important a part of a woman's character, so necessary to her own happiness, and so essential to her performing properly the duties of a wife and of a mother, that it ought to have the precedence of all other accomplishments, and take its rank next to the first duties of life. It is, moreover, an art as well as a virtue-and, many well-meaning persons, from ignorance, or from inconsideration, are strangely deficient in it. Indeed it is too often wholly neglected in a young woman's education-and, she is sent from her father's house to govern a family, without the least degree of that knowledge, which should qualify her for it: this is the source of much inconvenience; for though experience and attention may supply, by degrees, the want of instruction, yet this requires time-the family, in the mean time, may get into habits, which are very difficult to alter; and, what is

worse, the husband's opinion of his wife's incapacity may be fixed too strongly to suffer him ever to think justly of her gradual improvements. I would therefore earnestly advise you to make use of every opportunity you can find, for the laying in some store of knowledge on this subject, before you are called upon to the practice; by observing what passes before you-by consulting prudent and experienced mistresses of families-and by entering in a book a memorandum of every new piece of intelligence you acquire: you may afterwards compare these with more mature observations, and you can make additions and corrections as you see occasion. I hope it will not be long before your mother entrusts you with some part, at least, of the management of your father's house. Whilst you are under her eye, your ignorance cannot do much harm, though the relief to her at first may not be near so considerable as the benefit to yourself.

Economy consists of so many branches, some of which descend to such minutenesses, that it is impossible for me in writing to give you particular directions. The rude outlines

may perhaps be described, and I shall be hap py if I can furnish you with any hint that may hereafter be usefully applied.

The first and greatest point is to lay out your general plan of living in a just proportion to your fortune and rank: if these two will not coincide, the last must certainly give way; for, if you have right principles, you cannot fail of being wretched under the sense of the injustice as well as danger of spending beyond your income, and your distress will be continually increasing. No mortifications, which you can suffer from retrenching in your appearance, can be comparable to this unhappiness. If you would enjoy the real comforts of affluence, you should lay your plan considerably within your income; not for the pleasure of amassing wealth-though, where there is a growing family, it is an absolute duty to lay by something every year-but to provide for contingencies, and to have the power of indulg.. ing your choice in the disposal of the overplus

either in innocent pleasures, or to increase your funds for charity and generosity, which are in fact the true funds of pleasure. In some circumstances, indeed, this would not be pru

dent there are professions, in which a man's success greatly depends on his making some figure, where the bare suspicion of poverty would bring on the reality. If, by marriage, you should be placed in such a situation, it will be your duty to exert all your skill in the management of your income: Yet, even in this case, I would not strain to the utmost for appearance, but would chuse my models among the most prudent and moderate of my own class; and be contented with slower advancement, for the sake of security and peace of mind.

A contrary conduct is the ruin of many; and, in general, the wives of men in such professions might live in a more retired and frugal manner than they do, without any ill consequence, if they did not make the scheme of advancing the success of their husbands an excuse to themselves for the indulgence of their own vanity and ambition.

Perhaps it may be said, that the settling the general scheme of expences is seldom the wife's province, and that many men do not choose even to acquaint her with the real state of their affairs. Where this is the case, a