“You acted sensibly, Mary,” said her Aunt, “in refusing to marry Ralph at the present time, realizing your lack of knowledge of housework and inability to manage a home.  Neither would you know how to spend the money provided by him economically and wisely, and, in this age of individual efficiency, a business knowledge of housekeeping is almost as important in making a happy home as is love.  I think it quite as necessary that a woman who marries should understand housekeeping in all its varied branches as that the man who marries should understand his trade or profession; for, without the knowledge of means to gain a livelihood (however great his love for a woman), how is the man to hold that woman’s love and affection unless he is able by his own exertions to provide her with necessities, comforts, and, perhaps, in later years, luxuries?  And in return, the wife should consider it her duty and pleasure to know how to do her work systematically; learn the value of different foods and apply the knowledge gained daily in preparing them; study to keep her husband in the best of health, physically and mentally.  Then will his efficiency be greater and he will be enabled to do his ‘splendid best’ in whatever position in life he is placed, be he statesman or hod-carrier.  What difference, if an honest heart beat beneath a laborer’s hickory shirt, or one of fine linen?  ’One hand, if it’s true, is as good as another, no matter how brawny or rough.’  Mary, do not think the trivial affairs of the home beneath your notice, and do not imagine any work degrading which tends to the betterment of the home.  Remember, ’Who sweeps a room as for Thy law, makes that and the action fine.’

“Our lives are all made up of such small, commonplace things and this is such a commonplace old world, Mary.  ’The commonplace earth and the commonplace sky make up the commonplace day,’ and ’God must have loved common people, or He would not have made so many of them.’  And, what if we are commonplace?  We cannot all be artists, poets and sculptors.  Yet, how frequently we see people in commonplace surroundings, possessing the soul of an artist, handicapped by physical disability or lack of means!  We are all necessary in the great, eternal plan.  ’Tis not good deeds alone for which we receive our reward, but for the performance of duty well done, in however humble circumstances our lot is cast.  Is it not Lord Houghton who says:  ’Do not grasp at the stars, but do life’s plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things of life.’  I consider a happy home in the true sense of the word one of the greatest of blessings.  How important is the work of the housemother and homemaker who creates the home!  There can be no happiness there unless the wheels of the domestic machinery are oiled by loving care and kindness to make them run smoothly, and the noblest work a woman can do is training and rearing her children.  Suffrage, the right of woman