morning, must continue to suffer the consequences. Happy would it be if none but themselves were sufferers. Happy would be the condition of some husbands, could they escape the disorder produced by disorderly wives, and breathe freely once more their native element.

CHAPTER XVI.

PUNCTUALITY.

Punctuality lengthens life-is indispensable. Its influence on others. Various forms of punctuality. Anecdote. ReCase of the farmer. The wife's excuses.

flections.
state of the case.

Appeal to those whom it concerns.

Real

ONE of the more important of the common duties of a wife is punctuality. To so great an extent does her own happiness, as well as that of her husband, depend upon it, that I have sometimes wondered how any woman of good sense could overlook it. Yet nothing is more common.

It is almost in vain that you regard method and order, if you disregard punctuality. You may plan ever so well—you may have everything properly arranged, so far as mere theory is concerned, in the very best manner-you may even perform everything, when you do once attend to it, in the best possible manner;-and yet if a want of punctuality be a predominating trait in your character, you will wear away much of life to little purpose. It is verily believed that the lives-the real livesof people, vary in length, where years are equal,

from one fourth to one third of the period commonly allotted.

Besides, were there no actual loss to the housekeeper herself, there is great loss to those around her. They catch her example. They lose by her delay. Their tempers are disturbed by her mismanagement. This last remark is especially applicable to the husband. Many a young husband has been greatly discouraged by his wife's want of punctuality; and some have been completely ruined.

and

There are various forms in which this defect of character appears. One of its prominent forms, in a young house-keeper, is in regard to the preparation of meals. This subject may be illustrated by the following example, rewritten from another work of the author. It is the story, or rather the complaint, of a young husband about his wife; may afford to many a person a valuable hint. My companion, says the complainant, is one of the best women in the world, except in one single thing she is wanting in punctuality. In this point, in relation to everything, she utterly fails. If there be an appointment—a specified hour—no matter for what purpose, whether for rising, meals, rest, performing a job of work, calling on a friend, or even attending to religious duties or services-she is never ready at the time. She hurries and frets

and vacillates, and yet she is always too late, do what she will. Now, excellent as is her character in all other respects, and invaluable as she is as a companion, as a friend, and even as a housekeeper, this single thing-this single point of failure—embitters all my happiness, and greatly diminishes her own.

I am most troubled by her want of punctuality in regard to meals-breakfast, in particular. I am a sort of literary man. I am in the habit of rising at five o'clock throughout the year. My wife lies much later; and we do not pretend to have breakfast till eight o'clock. The lateness of the hour occasions very little inconvenience. I know indeed that it is better to take breakfast soon after we rise; but habit will soon accustom us to wait three hours, without any immediate inconvenience, and perhaps without any considerable degree of suffering which is more remote.

The precise time of breakfasting, I say, then, I care very little about, provided I can have a set time, and not depart from it. But herein consists the trouble of which I was going to speak.

Though I have told my wife, perhaps a hundred times, how the matter is-though I have given her, again and again, every reason why it is indispensa→ ble, in my business, that breakfast should be ready precisely at the time, and though it is now nearly

nine years since I have been laboring to get things right in this respect, I do not see but I am just as far from having attained my object as I was nine years ago.

I have told her, always, that I had no very strong objection to having breakfast ready at a few minutes before the time, but it ought never to be a minute later. I have told her of the advantages she herself would derive from forming a habit of punctuality, and that I thought she might as well begin with being punctual in regard to breakfast as in anything else.

She understands, fully, my reasons, and the weight of my arguments, and sometimes makes promises-sincere ones, too, I have no doubt-of reformation. Perhaps she succeeds in keeping her promise for a day or two-I believe she has done so once; but such is the tyranny of habit, that she soon slides into the old track again—and instead of having breakfast upon the table at eight, it does not arrive till three, five, ten, and sometimes nearly fifteen minutes afterward.

What grieves me most is, that my poor wife herself suffers a great deal on my account, although her suffering-like many other sufferings from sindoes not tend at all to her reformation. She goes on just as before. She is up late, has the tea on the table late, and everything late. At last, before