man, may, without loss of dignity, and certainly without loss of respect, make them feel that she regards it as her duty to be their friend as well as their mistress, and that she looks upon herself as under a sacred obligation to advise them in difficulties, to guard their welfare, and promote their comfort, simply because the all-wise Disposer of human affairs has seen meet to place them within the sphere of her influence.

I have devoted a chapter to the influence of English women. Many chapters might be filled with the duties of tradesmen's wives towards the young people employed in their husbands' affairs, and the responsibility attaching to them, for the tone of moral character which such persons exhibit through the whole of their after lives. Of how little value, in this point of view, is the immense variety of accomplishments generally acquired at school, compared with the discrimination and tact that would enable a woman to extend her influence among the class of persons here described, and the principle that would lead her to turn such influence to the best account! How many a mother's heart would be made glad by finding, when her son returned to his home, that he had experienced something of a mother's kindness from his master's wife; and how many a father would rejoice that his child had been preserved from the temptations of a city life, by the good feeling that was cherished and kept alive at his master's fireside!

It is for circumstances such as these, that a large proportion of the young women of England, now undergoing the process of education, have to prepare. Not to imitate the heroines they read of; but to plunge into the actual cares, and duties, and responsibilities of every-day existence. They will probably have little time either for drawing or music, may seldom be spoken to in a foreign tongue, and hardly have any opportunity of displaying half the amount of verbal knowledge with which their memories have been stored. But they will, if they are at all intent upon fulfilling the great end of their existence, have to bethink themselves every

hour, what is best to be done for the good and the happiness of those around them. For this great and laudable purpose, it is of the highest importance that they should cultivate habits of consideration; for how else can they expect to enter into the states of mind, and modes of feeling of those with whom they associate, so as to render the means they use effectual to the end desired? It happens to almost all families, in the middle rank of life in England, that they are directly or remotely connected with relatives whose pecuniary means are much more limited than their own. To these, as well as to persons of recently decayed fortune, it is generally thought highly meritorious to extend the common courtesies of society. It implies no disrespect to this class of individ uals, to call them poor relations; since the poor are often brought into a state of wholesome discipline, which eventually places them higher than the rich in the scale of moral worth. The poor relation may possibly have known in very early life what it was to enjoy all the comforts that ample means afford; but she becomes at last a sort of useful appendage to an uncle's or a brother's family, or is invited by her cousins whenever they happen to be in arrears with their plain-work -when one of the family wants nursing through a tedious illness-or when they are going abroad, and require some one to overlook the household in their absence.

The poor relation, in the first place, is shown up stairs into a kind of tolerable attic, where the walls are white-washed, and where a little bed with blue-check curtains is prepared for her accommodation. They hope she will not mind sleeping in the attic-indeed they are sure she will not, she is such a dear good creature; besides, they all like the attic for the view it commands, and mamma says it is the most comfortable room in the house: yet, somehow or other, the young ladies never sleep in the attic themselves; and considering it is the most desirable room in the house, and commands so excellent a view, it is astonishingly seldom occupied.

The poor relation is then introduced to

other's happiness, by the habits of kindness and consideration which they cultivate; and when a strong friendship can be formed between such parties, it is perhaps one of the most faithful and disinterested of any which the aspect of human life presents. A young man of kind and social feelings is often glad to find in his sister, a substitute for what he afterwards ensures more permanently in a wife; and young women are not backward in returning this affection by a love as confiding, and almost as tender as they are capable of feeling. Their intercourse has also the endearing charm of early association, which no later-formed acquaintance can supply. They have shared the sunny hours of childhood together; and when the young man goes forth into the world, the love of his sister is like a talisman about his heart. Woman, however, must be watchful and studious to establish this intimate connection, and to keep entire the golden cord by which they are thus bound. Affection does not come by relationship alone; and never yet was the affection of man fully and lastingly engaged by woman, without some means being adopted on her part to increase or preserve his happiness. The childish and most unsatisfactory fondness that means nothing but "I love you," goes but a little way to reach the heart of man; but let his home be made more comfortable, let his peculiarities of habit and temper be studiously consulted, and social and familiar gratifications provided for his daily use; and, unless he is ungrateful beyond the common average of mankind, he will be sure to regard the source from whence his comforts flow with extreme complacency, and not unfrequently with affection.

On the other hand, let the sister possess all that ardor of attachment which young ladies are apt to believe they feel, let her hang about his neck at parting, and bathe his face with her tears; if she has not taken the trouble to rise and prepare his early meal, but has allowed him to depend upon the servant, or to prepare it for himself; it is very questionable whether that brother could be made to believe in her affection; and cer

tainly he would be far from feeling its value. If, again, they read some interesting volume together, if she lends her willing sympathy, and blends her feelings with his, entering into all the trains of thought and recollection which two congenial minds are capable of awakening in each other; and if, after the book is closed, he goes up into his chamber late on the Saturday night, and finds his linen unaired, buttonless, and unattended to, with the gloves he had ten times asked to have mended, remaining untouched, where he had left them; he soon loses the impression of the social hour he had been spending, and wishes, that, instead of an idle sister, he had a faithful and industrious wife. He reasons, and reasons rightly, that while his sister is willing to share with him all that is most agreeable to herself, she is by no means willing to do for his sake what is not agreeable, and he concludes his argument with the conviction, that notwithstanding her professions, hers is not true affection.

I do not mean that sisters ought to be the servants of their brothers, or that they should not, where domestics abound, leave the practical part of these duties to them. All that is wanted is stronger evidence of their watchfulness and their solicitude for their brothers' real comfort. The manner in which this evidence shall be given, must still be left to their judgment, and their circumstances. There are, however, a few simple rules, by which I should suppose all kindly affectioned women would be willing to be guided. No woman in the enjoyment of health should allow her brother to prepare his own meals at any time of the day, if it were possible for her to do it for him. No woman should allow her brother to put on linen in a state of dilapidation, to wear gloves or stockings in want of mending, or to return home without finding a neat parlor, a place to sit down without asking for it, and a cheerful invitation to partake of necessary refreshment.

All this I believe is often faithfully done, where the brother is a gentlemanly, attractive, and prepossessing person-in short, a person to be proud of in company, and

pleased with in private; but a brother is a brother still, even where these attractions do not exist; where the duty is most irksome, the moral responsibility is precisely the same as where it is most pleasing. Besides, who knows what female influence may not effect? It is scarcely probable that a younger brother, treated by his sisters with perpetual contempt, almost bordering upon disgust, regarded as an intolerable bore, and got rid of by every practicable means, will grow up into a companionable, interesting, and social man; or if he should, he would certainly reserve these qualities for exercise, beyond the circle of his own fireside, and for the benefit of those who could appreciate him better than his sisters.

The virtue of consideration, in the intercourse of sisters with brothers, is never more felt than in the sacred duty of warning them of moral evil, and encouraging them in moral good. Here we see in an especial manner the advantages arising from habits of personal attention and kindness. A woman who stands aloof from the common offices of domestic usefulness, may very properly extend her advice to a husband, a brother, or a son; but when she has faithfully pointed out the fault she would correct, she must leave the object of her solicitude, with his wounded self-love unhealed, and his irritated feelings unrelieved. She has done her duty, and the impression most frequently remaining upon the mind of the other party is, either that she has done it in anger, or that it is impossible she can love a being of whom she entertains such hard thoughts.

The sister, who is accustomed to employ her hands in the services of domestic life, is, on these occasions, rich in resources. She feels the pain she has been compelled to give, and calculates how much she has to make up. It is a time for tenfold effort; but it must be effort without display. In a gentle and unobtrusive manner, she does some extra service for her brother, choosing what would otherwise be degrading in its own nature, in order to prove in the most delicate manner, that though she can see a fault in

him, she still esteems herself his inferior, and though she is cruel enough to point it out, her love is yet so deep and pure as to sweeten every service she can render him.

It is impossible for the human heart to resist this kind of evidence, and hence arises the strong influence that women possess over the moral feelings of those with whom they are intimately associated.

man.

If such, then, be the effect of kindness and consideration upon the heart of man, what must we expect when it operates in all its force and all its sweetness upon that of woIn her intercourse with man, it is impossible but that woman should feel her own inferiority; and it is right that it should be so. Yet, feeling this, it is also impossible but that the weight of social and moral duties she is called upon to perform, must, to an unsanctified spirit, at times appear oppressive. She has innumerable sources of disquietude, too, in which no man can partake; and from the very weakness and susceptibility of her own nature, she has need of sympathies which it would be impossible for him to render. She does not meet him upon equal terms. Her part is to make sacrifices, in order that his enjoyment may be enhanced. She does this with a willing spirit; but from error of judgment, or want of consideration, she does it so often without producing any adequate result, and so often without grateful acknowledgment, that her spirit sometimes sinks within her, and she shrinks back from the cares and anxieties of every day, with a feeling that the burden of life is too heavy to be borne.

Nor is the man to be blamed for this. He knows not half the foolish fears that agitate her breast. He could not be made to know, still less to understand, the intensity of her capability of suffering, from slight, and what to him would appear inadequate causes. But women do know what their sex is formed to suffer; and for this very reason, there is sometimes a bond existing between sisters, the most endearing, the most pure and disinterested of any description of affection which this world affords.

I am the more inclined to think that the strength of this bond arises chiefly out of their mutual knowledge of each other's capability of receiving pain; because, in families whose circumstances are uniformly easy, and who have never known the visitation of any deep affliction, we often see the painful spectacle of sisters forming obstacles to each other in their progress both to temporal and eternal happiness. They seem to think the hey-day of life so unlikely to be clouded, that they can afford, wantonly and perversely, to intercept the sunshine that would otherwise fall upon each other's path; or to calculate so confidently upon the continued smoothness of the stream of time, that they sportively drive each other upon the rocks and the quicksands, which, even in the glad season of youth, will occasionally appear; while the very fact of knowing each other's weak points of character, while it ought to excite their utmost tenderness, only affords them subjects for tormenting sarcasm, and biting scorn.

I have heard of hackney-coachmen in a certain highly civilized metropolis, who adopt the cruel practice of lashing a galled or wounded part, if they can find one in the wretched animals they drive; but I hardly think the practice, abhorrent as it is, demands our condemnation more than that of the women who are thus false and cruel to each other-who, because they know exactly where to wound, apply the instrument of torture to the mind, unsparingly, and with the worst effect.

Let us glance hastily over the humiliating supposition that such a propensity does actually exist among women. Let us glance hastily, too, over the long train of minute and irremediable evils which the exercise of such a propensity is calculated to produce-the wounded feeling, the imagined injury, the suspicious dread, the bitter retort, and the secretly-cherished revenge. It is not enough for those who practise such habits to say, "I mean no harm: I love my sister, and would do her any signal service in my power." Opportunities of performing signal services

do not often fall in our way; but while we wait for these, we have opportunities innumerable of soothing or irritating the feelings of others, as our own dispositions promptof repelling or attacking-of weaning affection, or of inspiring confidence; and these ends are easily obtained, by the manner in which we conduct ourselves towards those whom Providence has placed immediately around us.

So many young women, however, escape the censure here implied, by their self-complacency on the score of general kindness, that it may, perhaps, be as well to speak more explicitly on this important subject. It is not, then, to direct unkindness that I refer, but to that general absence of kind consideration, which produces the same effect. Perhaps one sister is unreasonably elated at the success of some of her plans: and in the midst of her ecstatic joy she finds herself mimicked with all the air of ineffable contempt, by another. Perhaps one sister is rather unusually depressed in spirits from some incommunicable cause: the others pretend to weep, and make her gravity the subject of their merriment. Perhaps, in moment of extreme embarrassment, she has committed some breach of good breeding, or looked awkward, or spoken foolishly she finds afterwards that watchful eyes have been upon her, and that her every tone and movement have been the subject of ridicule in a little coterie of her sisters and her friends. Above all, perhaps she has gone a little too far in meeting the attentions of the other sex, and a merciless outcry is raised against her, with her sisters at its head.

Besides all this, there are often the strong wills of both parties set in opposition to each other, with a pertinacity that time itself is unable to subdue. For if, from the necessity of circumstances, one sister has on one occasion been compelled to give way, she is only fortified with fresh resolution for the next point of dispute, that she may enjoy her turn of victory and triumph. These disputes are often about the merest trifles in the world, things so entirely worthless and unimportant