Industry is of course essential.  This is the soul of business; but, without method, industry will be less productive.  Industry may sometimes look like confusion.  But the methodical and industrious woman gets through her work in a quiet, steady style,—­without fuss, or noise, or dust-clouds.

Prudence is another important household qualification.  Prudence comes from cultivated judgment:  it means practical wisdom.  It has reference to fitness, to propriety; it judges of the right thing to be done, and of the right way of doing it.  It calculates the means, order, time, and method of doing.  Prudence learns much from experience, quickened by knowledge.

Punctuality is another eminently household qualification.  How many grumblings would be avoided in domestic life, by a little more attention being paid to this virtue.  Late breakfasts and late dinners,—­“too late” for church and market,—­“cleanings” out of time, and “washings” protracted till midnight,—­bills put off with a “call again to-morrow,”—­engagements and promises unfulfilled,—­what a host of little nuisances spring to mind, at thought of the unpunctual housewife!  The unpunctual woman, like the unpunctual man, becomes disliked, because she consumes our time, interferes with our plans, causes uneasy feelings, and virtually tells us that we are not of sufficient importance to cause her to be more punctual.  To the business man, time is money, and to the business woman it is more,—­it is peace, comfort, and domestic prosperity.

Perseverance is another good household habit.  Lay down a good plan, and adhere to it.  Do not be turned from it without a sufficient reason.  Follow it diligently and faithfully, and it will yield fruits in good season.  If the plan be a prudent one, based on practical wisdom, a ll things will gravitate towards it, and a mutual dependence will gradually be established among all the parts of the domestic system.

We might furnish numerous practical illustrations of the truth of these remarks, but our space is nearly filled up, and we must leave the reader to supply them from his or her own experience.

There are many other illustrations which might be adduced, of the art of making life happy.  The management of the temper is an art full of beneficent results.  By kindness, cheerfulness, and forbearance, we can be happy almost at will; and at the same time spread happiness about us on every side.  We can encourage happy thoughts in ourselves and others.  We can be sober in habit.  What can a wife and her children think of an intemperate husband and father?  We can be sober in language, and shun cursing and swearing—­the most useless, unmeaning, and brutal of vulgarities.  Nothing can be so silly and unmeaning—­not to say shocking, repulsive, and sinful—­as the oaths so common in the mouths of vulgar swearers.  They are profanation without purpose—­impiety without provocation—­blasphemy without excuse.