Occupations > Frugal housewife

MODERATE FORTUNE. 18]
next hers'! She is so indolent and filthy,
that she "can with difficulty be made to
attend to her own personal comfort; and
even the most patient are worn out with her
perpetual fretfulness. Her mind is con¬
tinually infested with envy, hatred, and dis¬
content. She thinks Providence has dealt
hardly with her; that all the world are
proud and ungrateful j and that every one
despises her because she is in the alms¬
house. This pitable state of mind is the
natural result of her education.
Her father was a respectable tradesman,
and might have been a wealthy one, had he
not been fascinated by the beauty of a
thoughtless, idle, showy girl, whom he made
his wife. The usual consequences followed
—he could not earn money so fast as she
could spend it; the house became a scene of
discord; the daughter dressed in the fashion;
learned to play on the piano ; was taught to
think that being engaged in any useful em¬
ployment was very ungenteel; and that to
be engaged to be married was the chief end and
aim of woman ; the father died a bankrupt;
the weak and frivolous mother lingered along
in beggary for a while, and then died of
vexation and shame.
The friends of the family were very kind
to the daughter ; but her extreme indolence,
her vanity, pertness, and ingratitude, finally
exhausted the kindness of the most generous