Their talk is of priests and of missions; of the profits of their last sale, of their hopes from the next; of the doubt whether your Mr. This, or young Mr. That should receive the fruits of it to fit him out for Liberia; of the very ugly bonnet seen at church on Sabbath morning, of the very handsome preacher who performed on Sabbath afternoon, and of the very large collection made on Sabbath evening.  This lasts till three, when the carriage again appears, and the lady and her basket return home; she mounts to her chamber, carefully sets aside her bonnet and its appurtenances, puts on her scolloped black silk apron, walks into the kitchen to see that all is right, then into the parlour, where, having cast a careful glance over the table prepared for dinner, she sits down, work in hand, to await her spouse.  He comes, shakes hands with her, spits, and dines.  The conversation is not much, and ten minutes suffices for the dinner; fruit and toddy, the newspaper and the work-bag succeed.  In the evening the gentleman, being a savant, goes to the Wister society, and afterwards plays a snug rubber at a neighbour’s.  The lady receives at tea a young missionary and three members of the Dorcas society.—­And so ends her day.

For some reason or other, which English people are not very likely to understand, a great number of young married persons board by the year, instead of “going to housekeeping,” as they call having an establishment of their own.  Of course this statement does not include persons of large fortune, but it does include very many whose rank in society would make such a mode of life quite impossible with us.  I can hardly imagine a contrivance more effectual for ensuring the insignificance of a woman, than marrying her at seventeen, and placing her in a boarding-house.  Nor can I easily imagine a life of more uniform dulness for the lady herself; but this certainly is a matter of taste.  I have heard many ladies declare that it is “just quite the perfection of comfort to have nothing to fix for oneself.”  Yet despite these assurances I always experienced a feeling which hovered between pity and contempt, when I contemplated their mode of existence.

How would a newly-married Englishwoman endure it, her head and her heart full of the one dear scheme—­

    “Well ordered home, his dear delight to make?”

She must rise exactly in time to reach the boarding table at the hour appointed for breakfast, or she will get a stiff bow from the lady president, cold coffee, and no egg.  I have been sometimes greatly amused upon these occasions by watching a little scene in which the bye-play had much more meaning than the words uttered.  The fasting, but tardy lady, looks round the table, and having ascertained that there was no egg left, says distinctly, “I will take an egg if you please.”  But as this is addressed to no one in particular, no one in particular answers it, unless it happen that her husband is at