best wife in the world."
God knows that she feels, ever
did feel, how far she fell short, in most relations of life, of
the resolutions she made very early in life, to labour, if
ever she did marry, to make the best wife in the world,
and, if God
blessed her with children, the best mother.
Alas! she repeats it, she
feels, that she fell short; and yet,
such is the frailty of our fallen nature, that, were the time
to be gone over again, she fears she could not much mend
her hand. As mistress of a family, she, from early youth,
resolved to treat her servants just as she would wish them
to treat her, were they instantly to exchange stations. Per∣haps
this has sometimes gone rather too far. A beloved
friend of her's, nicknamed by the Editor in her youth, the
Centurioness,
"I say to my servant do this, and he doth it,"
frequently told the Editor, she was a most incompara∣ble
governess of her children, and of dogs and cats; but
that her servants did, or did
not obey her orders,
just as it
suited their own convenience; adding,
"I think they are
mighty good kind of people to do any thing; you ask them
so quietly, Pray now will you do so?"
The Editor, as above shewn, with her children did not
deal in shewing authority; with servants as well as children,
when she set about any thing in good earnest, calmly say∣ing,
"I will have this or that done."
She has ever, with
both, found that
her word was a law. Servants are much
to be pitied; they have often jobs to finish as well as their