“There is only one occupation for women,” said Mrs. Becker, “and that is too well defined to admit of speculation, and too important to admit of fanciful embellishments.”

“Well, then, mother, let us hear what it is.”

“It is to nurse you, and rear you, when you are unable to help yourselves; to guide your first steps, and teach you to lisp your first syllables.  For this purpose, God has given her qualities that attract sympathy and engender love.  She is so constituted as to impart a charm to your lives, to share in your labors, to soothe you when you are ruffled, to smooth your pillow when you are in pain, and to cherish you in old age; bestowing upon you, to your last hour, cares that no other love could yield.  These, gentlemen, are the duties and occupations of women; and you must admit, that if it is not our province to command armies, or to add new planets to the galaxy of the firmament; that if we have not produced an Iliad or an AEnead, a Jerusalem Delivered, or a Paradise Lost, an Oratorio of the Creation, a Transfiguration, or a Laocoon, we have not the less our modest utility.”

“I should think so, mother,” replied Jack; “it would take no end of philosophers to do the work of one of you.”

“It surprises me,” said Willis, “that not one of you has selected the finest profession in the world—­that of a sailor.”

“The finest profession of the sea, you mean, Willis.  There is no doubt of its being the finest that can be exercised on the ocean, since it is the only one.  If it is the best, Willis, it is also the worst.”

“It has also produced great men,” continued Willis; “there are Columbus, Vasco de Gama, and Captain Cook, to whom you are indebted for a new world.”

“No thanks to them for that,” said Jack; “if they had not discovered a new world we should have been in an old one.”

“That does not follow,” remarked Ernest; “the new world would have existed even if it had not been discovered, and you might have found your way there all the same.”

“Not very likely,” replied Jack, “unless one of the stars you intend to discover had shown us the way; otherwise it would only have existed in conjecture; and as nobody under such circumstances would have dreamt of settling in it, they would not have been shipwrecked during the voyage.”

“Very true,” remarked Fritz; “if we had not been here we should, very probably, have been somewhere else, and perhaps in a much worse plight.  Let me ask if there is any one here who regrets his present position?”

Willis was about to reply to this question, but Sophia observing that there was something wrong with the handkerchief that he wore round his neck, hastened towards him to put it to rights, and he was silent.

The hour had now arrived when the families separated for the night.  Mary was preparing as usual to recite the evening prayer, but before doing so she whispered a few words in her mother’s ear.