The domestic economy of Mrs. Pullens was her own theme, and the theme of all her friends; and such was the zeal in promulgating her doctrines, and her anxiety to see them carried into effect, that she had endeavoured to pass it into a law that no preserves could be eatable but those preserved in her method; no hams could be good but those cured according to her receipt; no liquors drinkable but such as were made from the results of her experience; neither was it possible that any linens could be white, or any flannels soft, or any muslins clear, unless after the manner practised in her laundry.  By her own account she was the slave of every servant within her door, for her life seemed to be one unceasing labour to get everything done in her own way, to the very blacking of Mr. Pullens’s shoes, and the brushing of Mr. Pullens’s coat.  But then these heroic acts of duty were more than repaid by the noble consciousness of a life well spent.  In her own estimation she was one of the greatest characters that had ever lived; for, to use her own words, she passed nothing over—­she saw everything done herself—­she trusted nothing to servants, etc. etc. etc.

From the contemplation of these her virtues her face had acquired an expression of complacency foreign to her natural temper; for, after having scolded and slaved in the kitchen, she sat down to taste the fruits of her labours with far more elevated feelings of conscious virtue than ever warmed the breast of a Hampden or a Howard; and when she helped Mr. Pullens to pie, made not by the cook, but by herself, it was with an air of self-approbation that might have vied with that of the celebrated Jack Horner upon a similar occasion.  In many cases there might have been merit in Mrs. Pullens’s doings—–­a narrow income, the capricious taste of a sick or a cross husband, may exalt the meanest offices which woman can render into acts of virtue, and even diffuse a dignity around them; but Mr. Pullens was rich and good-natured, and would have been happy had his cook been allowed to dress his dinner, and his barber his wig, quietly in their own way.  Mrs. Pullens, therefore, only sought the indulgence of her own low inclinations in thus interfering in every menial department; while, at the same time, she expected all the gratitude and admiration that would have been due to the sacrifice of the most refined taste and elegant pursuits.

But “envy does merit as its shade pursue,” as Mrs Pullens experienced, for she found herself assailed by a host of housekeepers who attempted to throw discredit on her various arts.  At the head of this association was Mrs. Jekyll, whose arrangements were on a quite contrary plan.  The great branch of science on which Mrs. Pullens mainly relied for fame was her unrivalled art in keeping things long beyond the date assigned by nature; and one of her master-strokes was, in the middle of summer, to surprise a whole company with gooseberry tarts made of gooseberries